For Light, Without Darkness, Is Nothing
by SafireGriffon
Summary: They may not have been champions of the light, but they weren't afraid of the darkness. Takes place after Kingdom Hearts, ignoring the events of KH2. Multiple pairings. Rating for mild language. Finished at last!
1. Prisoners

A/N: Yay! You made it to my first Kingdom Hearts ficcy! It starts where Kingdom Hearts left off, completely ignoring any events that may take place in Kingdom Hearts 2. Hope to see ya'll on that review page!

Disclaimer: If I had a nickel for every time someone said I owned Kingdom Hearts, I would be nickel-less.

Prisoners 

He'd been there for a while, lying on the ground. A boy. I couldn't help but stare. After all, it wasn't often that boys, or any living things for that matter, fell out of the sky. Definitely not normal weather patterns.

He moved his head a little to one side. Good, he wasn't dead. I didn't really want to deal with a dead person. It would have been strange burying someone without even knowing his name, or anything about him. That would make an interesting eulogy, "I'll miss you Bob. I loved you ever since your fatal fall from the sky."

He opened bleary eyes. They were bright blue, shockingly so. They were beautiful.

"Can you get up?"

It took him a while to focus on where the voice was coming from. When he finally found my face, he mumbled an indistinct, "Huh?"

"Well, if you can't walk, I'll either have to drag you, or I'll have to try to fix something out here to keep the rain off."

He lifted up his head, and propped himself up on his elbows, "Oww . . ."

I felt one of my eyebrows raise. It was a habit I'd had since I was a little girl, "No kidding. You just fell from . . .well, pretty high up."

"How did I get here?" He shook his head, then quickly grimaced and stopped.

"That's what I wanted to ask you—I didn't think anyone could get through the barrier."

"Barrier?"

"Come on, it's going to start raining soon. You need to get inside. Look," I pointed at the building behind me, "We just need to get you in there. Can you make it?"

He moved his head to nod, then seemed to think better of it, and said, "Yeah." He seemed to almost roll to his feet. Despite what must be a lot of pain, he was so graceful. That didn't last though.

"Whoa!" I cried, and barely caught the boy's wobbling frame before he went tumbling back to the ground. I adjusted, swinging one of his arms over my shoulders, and wrapping one of mine around his waist. It ended up taking a lot more time than I would have thought possible just to coordinate our movements so that we actually continued moving toward the door. I clumsily propped him up against the wall, "Sorry, the door's kind of heavy," I explained, using both hands on the stubborn door. Because of the damp, the wooden door now drug along the stone floor instead of easily floating over it. Thank you, door, for being so difficult. When I finally got it far enough open so I could drag the boy in without too much difficulty, I wrapped my arm back around him and guided him to a couch close to the fireplace.

"Wait here, I'll be right back," I muttered a few words at the grate, and a snapping fire began burning. I nearly ran up to one of the guest rooms, pulling spare blankets and pillows out of a cedar chest in the corner. Thank heaven _something_ in this castle wasn't moldy! When I went back downstairs, he had curled onto one side, resting his head on one loosely balled fist, his white hair falling and obscuring his face. I laid the blanket over him, and settled into a large chair just across, holding the pillow against my chest, watching. I wondered what his name was. How old was he? Where did he come from? And how did he get through the barrier?

I kicked my shoes off, and tucked one of my feet under me, letting the other dangle just off the floor, and hugged the pillow tighter. I breathed in the cedar smell. Well, watching him wouldn't make him wake up any faster. Might as well get something to eat. I walked past the boy on the couch toward the kitchen, then stopped in the doorway. I turned back around and brushed the hair out of his face, tucking it behind his ear. He didn't stir, but I could hear his breath, steady and soft. I walked back to the kitchen.

I was back to sitting in the chair. Soup was simmering in the kitchen, just staying warm until he woke up. I'd been trying to keep busy, getting one of the few habitable bedrooms ready, trying to keep rain from coming in the gaping holes that passed for windows in most of the rooms. I'd picked up a book from the library, but once I sat back down in the front room, I lost all interest in reading it. For appearance's sake—for who, I wondered—I flipped through the pages half-heartedly, but the character's lines escaped me. I could no longer remember why the young hero was going on the quest, and which woman was the princess and which one was the sorceress. So I'd settled back on the chair, watching him sleep.

I hoped he didn't hit his head so hard that he messed up his brain or something. I didn't know enough about medicine to help him if that was the case. And then we're back to Bob's eulogy.

Then he opened his eyes, "What's goin' on?"

"Are you feeling better now?" I asked, getting up and crouching beside the couch, holding one finger up, a few inches away from his face, "Can you follow this?" His eyes traced my hand's movements to my satisfaction. I didn't know exactly what this proved, or what I would have done if he couldn't have done that, but I remember Grandma doing that after I fell out of a tree once.

"What's your name?"

"Riku."

I smiled, that sounded much better than Bob, "I'm Amaya."

"Where am I?"

"You're in my castle. Are you feeling well enough to sit up?"

He nodded and moved to a sitting position on the couch, his sleep-tousled hair forming a sort of halo around his head.

"Do you want something to eat?" I said, suddenly feeling nervous. It was different when he was awake. It felt so weird to finally see someone, to finally talk to someone.

"Uh, yeah, if you got anything."

I nodded and got him a bowl of the soup from the kitchen, "Have as much as you like. There's plenty. I'm sorry I had to set you up here on a couch; I couldn't carry you up the stairs to the guestrooms."

"That's fine. Uh," he looked around, "I guess it must be late at night, huh?"

"Not really," I turned at looked at the clock, "Just past 8 o'clock."

"Then where is everybody?"

"I'm the only one here. Well, and now you. But you got in through the barrier, so that means you can get back out, right? Will you take me with you?" It all kind of came out in a rush, and I must have looked absolutely desperate, but I didn't care. I needed out of this place.

"Uh," he said, leaning a little away, "I'm sorry. I don't know how I got here."

"Oh," I whispered, sitting back on me feet, I realized I'd risen up to my knees as I was talking to him.

"I'm sorry."

"It's alright," I murmured, biting me lip to keep from crying right there. I thought . . .

"How long have you been here? I mean, by yourself."

I stared at the carpet, tracing a design with my finger, "I've probably missed a couple days, it's hard to keep track. But it's close to nine years, I think. Maybe it's already been nine years." I felt the shocked silence, and hurried to explain, "Well, my father used to come a lot. But he came less and less often, and now it's been a year since he was here last."

"You don't know where he is?"

"No. The Heartless invaded our world in the middle of the night, and he brought me here. To be safe, he said. He said when everything was over he would come back. But our world was destroyed, completely, our people scattered. He said he was looking for my little sister, and when he found her, we could all be together again. But he hasn't found her."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

"So . . .there's no one else? On this entire world?"

"No one. There's enough here for plenty though. That's what weird. I mean, there's this castle here, with enough rooms for dozens of people, but everything's starting to get on the worn side. There's never any shortage of food around here, strangely enough. I mean, not too much variety, or anything, but plenty to eat. I'm kind of a forced vegetarian, as it were. Sorry about that."

"That's fine."

"So . . .you came from another world, right?"

He hesitated, then nodded.

"What's it like?"

"Gone, now. It was just a little island, in the middle of an ocean. I mean, I guess there was nothing wrong with it, but it was suffocating after a while. All the same things, the same people, all the time. Nothing new, ever. That's why I tried to leave, because I wanted to see other places."

"It was just as much a prison as this place."

He stared at me a long time. Shockingly blue eyes and white hair.

"I guess it was."

A/N: You like? Go push the pretty purple button and review. Constructive criticism welcome, flames will be used to make s'mores! Yum!


	2. Getting To Know You

A/N: Okay, I know this first chapter sounds kind of stupid, but I was worried about revealing too much too quickly. It's probably already obvious, anyway. Well, R&R, please! On to Chapter 2!

Chapter 2: Getting to Know You 

A/N: Okay, heeeeeeere's Riku!

Disclaimer: Feel the force, and know that own Kingdom Hearts, I do not.

I didn't get it. I mean, I was there. In the Heart of Worlds, and I shut the door. That means all the worlds should have been restored, and everything should be back to the way it was. And I should be dead. Not that I was complaining on that note.

But this girl was in this place all alone. If her home had been destroyed by the Heartless like she said, it should have returned, and she should be back there. It should be undone. Something was wrong. Not to mention the fact that the last thing I remember, I had been fighting against an unreal amount of heartless.

The door was closed. Sora and Kairi were safe. The Heartless rose in a wave. Oh God, oh God, it was gonna kill me. It was gonna kill me. I was gonna die. It crashed. I couldn't breathe; my body was thrown back and forth, a piece of driftwood caught in a gale, and then there was something. Not light, maybe, but a piece of gray in a world of black. I didn't have anything else to go by. I tried to make my way toward it. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours, it could have been days, but I was there. And then I was falling, falling.

I jerked as I heard a knock on the door. "Yeah? Yeah, come in."

I was still in bed, where I'd fallen asleep the night before, when Amaya walked in. We'd spent hours talking about the worlds I'd been to. I'd skipped over a lot. Like, everything involving the reasons I was in these worlds, anything involving Ansem or the creeps working for him, the fact that I was one of these creeps. I didn't even really talk about Sora or Kairi. Amaya had this way of looking at you that gave you the feeling that she would see the lie the second it came out of your mouth. The best way to avoid lying about it was to not talk about it. She had to have noticed the huge gaping holes in the story, but she hadn't commented.

"Oh, sorry, were you still sleeping?" She brushed her mahogany hair out of her face, her blue eyes smiling. Something seemed very familiar about her, but I couldn't quite place what it was. 'Well, whatever. I'll figure it out later.'

"Uh, no. Not really. Just being lazy," I got up and stretched, wincing a little at all the sore spots. After falling out of the sky—Amaya had told me about that last night—it was just miraculous that I hadn't broken my neck or something. A few bruises were nothing to whine about.

"I just thought you might like a tour around the castle or something. And, if you want them," she held up a bundle of clothes, "They're not exactly great, as you can tell by what I'm wearing," she gestured toward her own gown, "but they are a change of clothes."

I hadn't really thought about it, but I probably did smell pretty bad by this point, considering all the things these clothes had been through. (A/N: Ewww, Heartless guts) She was right, the clothes weren't exactly designer. I could hear her holding back a snort of laughter when I kept messing with the lace on the sleeves. "Sorry," she said, trying so hard not to laugh it was ridiculous, "I think these clothes are all a couple of centuries behind the times."

Yeah, no kidding. I'm wearing a shirt with lace on the sleeves, and I'm sure it took all her willpower to hand me a decent pair of pants instead of tights. "All you need is the cape, and you'll be some medieval hero or something," she laughed, faking a sword thrust, "Have at ye, blackguards!"

"Like you're one to talk, Miss Maiden-In-Distress!"

She seemed surprised, then laughed, "Touché."

"Basically," she explained as we walked downstairs, "This hallway is all bedrooms. Some are nicer than others. Only a few of them have glass in the windows, so most of them get pretty cold, and the rain tends to come in." She winced, "Sorry about that."

"Oh, my room was fine." Truthfully, I'd been so cold I'd woken myself shivering. But I couldn't tell her that when she had obviously tried to her best. Even the weeks in Hollow Bastion hadn't acclimated me to the cold; my body wanted to be back on the tropical island I'd grown up on, even when the rest of me knew I could never go back, even if it was restored.

She smiled, "I'm glad."

She looked at me a little longer. It really should've been staring, she looked at me so long, but it didn't feel like staring. Staring felt uncomfortable, people were evaluating, judging, appraising, when they stared. She just looked at me the same way you would look at a waterfall or a sunset. Just looking. Or maybe she was judging and just good at hiding it. I don't know.

"Downstairs you saw the little living room. There's also the kitchen, the dining room, a door to the gardens, and the library." She stood at the bottom of the stairs, with her hands behind her back. The childish pose seemed at odds with her speech, but that was probably just because she spent so much time alone.

"What do you want to see?"

"Whatever you want."

She grabbed my hand. Her fingers were cold. "Then let's go to the gardens."

She led me downstairs to a glass door, delicately scrolled with a design I didn't have time to see.

The gardens were overgrown, flowers spilling over the edges of pots and planters, climbing roses completely hiding the structures they clung to, but everything was still green, a few leaves dripping with the rain from the night before. I felt goose bumps crawl over my skin as a small gust of wind blew a few fallen leaves at my feet.

I watched her walk several feet in front of me, "You've been here for nine years, right?"

She turned, "I think so."

There was something so familiar about her, but I couldn't figure out what it was. I knew some of those mannerisms. I knew those smiling eyes. But where did I know them from?

"So . . .how old are you?"

"Eighteen, if my birthday's passed already. How old are you?"

"Fifteen. Sixteen soon," I added quickly. I don't know why. Well, I mean, I know _why_, but why should it matter? I mean, this was some girl who'd been stranded on this planet. And I wasn't exactly a knight in shining armor to come rescue her. Still, I didn't want her thinking I was some kid or something. She was an older woman.

"Really? You look older."

Yeah, that's right. I'm mature. I'm cool.

Then we passed a low place in the hedge, and I saw to the land beyond. "What the heck happened there?"

She walked back so she was standing next to me, almost brushing against me. Close enough to make the hair on my arms stand up, tingling with the almost-touch.

"That?"

She pointed. Everything beyond the border of the garden was scorched. Gray and black, with stunted, withered trees standing in dust and broken stone. A small wind, the same one that had blown the leaves at my feet, blew dust across the cracked earth in a small spiral before leaving it to rest and teasing a few barren braches of the trees.

"That's just what all the rest of this place looks like. That's why there's nothing here. I'm not sure what happened," she shrugged, "But whatever it is must have been bad if it hasn't even begun to replenish itself in the whole time I've been here."

I looked away, feeling a cold that had nothing to do with the temperature gripping at my gut. There was something just wrong there. There was no reason for this part to be alive and that part to be dead. It didn't make sense.

"Here," she grabbed my forearm, awkwardly trying to lead me away, "If we follow this path, it leads to the back door of the library." I let her lead me, trying to figure out exactly what this place was.

When we walked in, my mouth must have dropped open. 'It's exactly like the library in Hollow Bastion . . .'

Luckily, she wasn't facing me, so I rearranged my face back to normal as she turned to explain, "It's my favorite room in the house." She ran her hands over the spines of the large tomes. She turned, "You came from another world. You went to a bunch of other worlds. You have to know the secret to traveling between them! Why won't you tell me?"

I sighed and leaned against the nearest bookshelf, "How much do you know about the other worlds?"

"Only what's here," she gestured at the books, "And what you and my father have told me. I know we don't know how many there are, and that they used to all be closed off from each other, but, in recent years, they have been opened. But this one wasn't," her eyes narrowed, "No one came here but my father, then he stopped coming. And I can't leave. I've tried."

"You tried to leave? Without any outside help?"

"You think I've just been sitting here? I've been training; I'm a fairly powerful mage. It's not that big a jump from working magic here and using magic to transport yourself, at least, theoretically it's not. But I can't make the jump. I don't know why. There's some secret that isn't mentioned here in the books, and you know what it is."

"Listen, you normally need a gummi ship to travel between worlds."

"Normally. So there's another way."

"It's not a good idea. Just leave that stuff alone. We'll find another way out of here."

"How are we supposed to find a way out, if you don't tell the whole story?"

"Okay, listen. The last time I did things that way, I ended up destroying my whole world, and almost killing my two best friends. I'm not going that way again."

Her face relaxed, softened. "What happened?"

"You know what the Heartless are, and what they do."

"Yes."

"Well, a man named Ansem came to my world, and told me he had the secret to traveling the worlds. My world was locked off from the others; all I needed to do was open the door. There would be darkness, but it could be controlled, as long as I wasn't afraid of it. Once we made it past the darkness, we could go to other worlds. We would be connected. What he didn't tell me was that the whole world would be destroyed. And he ended up being wrong about the darkness. No one can control it—it just destroys you from the inside out."

"He's—he's dead, then?" Her voice trembled. I felt bad for her; she'd been here so long, and when it finally looked like she could get out, I had to tell her that there wasn't anything I could do to help her.

"Yeah. The darkness destroyed him. I barely escaped, into this place."

"I . . .see."

"But hey," I put a hand on her shoulder, "There's got to be another way out of here, right? I didn't tell you, but back on my old world, my friends and I were to the point of building a raft just to see where it would take us. Hopefully, things won't get that desperate here, but I'm not giving up 'till I get out of here. Are you?"

She smiled, "No."


	3. Of Creepy Books and Mindless Plot Device...

A/N: Back to Amaya's POV. And awaaaaaaaaay we go!

Disclaimer: If I own Kingdom Hearts, then I'm a purple polka-dotted jackalope.

Chapter 3: Of Creepy Books and Mindless Plot Devices 

Ansem was dead. The ruler of Hollow Bastion, the only one brave enough to study the Heartless, the one who'd said there was a way to link us to all the other worlds. _There is a way to travel between them. We just need to find it. But you're too weak, for now Amaya. Later, when you get older, you'll be able to travel them. Just keep training, eventually, that magic will take you to other worlds. But you must get stronger. Don't be afraid, and the darkness cannot conquer you._

But that darkness had taken him, destroyed him. From the inside out. But there had to be a way. There was always a way. _There are no impossibilities, only things that have not yet been discovered._

The pile of books on the table grew as I looked through one, then the other, looking for any morsel that I may have overlooked. Useless. I'd read these books hundreds of times. I knew there was nothing else in there. But there had to be something. Some secret we didn't yet know. I made a frustrated noise and hit my fists on the desk in front of me, "What is it? What am I missing?"

Something rattled. I looked up in surprise, and saw that something in the nearby column was spinning. An empty space, an empty space, wait! Something! Then it spun back around, stone seamlessly fitting against stone. I touched the column, but it didn't move again. I searched all over the table, running my hands all over the top, the sides, the legs, underneath. Nothing. I looked on the floor under the table. Nope.

'Maybe if I moved the table . . .' Finally, I heard a small click, and the column started spinning again. I frantically looked around and found the cause—a small button on the bottom of the column, the same level and color of the stone. When I'd hit the table, the leg had hit it. I couldn't help but hit myself on the forehead. 'Nine freaking years, and I didn't find this stupid switch! Nine freaking years!' I shook my fist at the sky, er, ceiling, "WHY????"

I pushed the button a few more times, but the column would always spin back around to its original place. I considered trying to grab the thing while it was spinning, but I knew that at least part of this contraption was stone, and, with it spinning that fast, it would definitely crush my hand. I didn't want a crushed hand. 'But," I thought, picking up a heavy volume, 'A crushed encyclopedia wouldn't hurt anybody.'

Several tries and ripped pages later, I finally got the book jammed in the right place to allow me access to the thing inside the column—a small box, covered in dust. I got it onto the table and started working at the clasp to open it, 'What would be hidden in a column?'

I stopped with a start. I had just sort of assumed it would be whatever I needed to get off this God-forsaken world, but it was very likely that it was nothing of the sort.

"Please be worth it, please be something I need," I begged the poor box, and when it fell open, a few yellowed, crumbling pages fell out.

I picked them up, "Please don't be some stupid little girl's diary or something. Be something useful!"

In the universe, there exists both light and dark. Man has spent thousands of years trying to expel the darkness, but to what purpose? If he did indeed succeed in expunging the darkness, the balance of the universe would be skewed, and all would fall into chaos, burning in eternal light. For light, without dark, is nothing. The light, likewise, cannot be extinguished, for if it is, than the universe would freeze in the unending dark. For dark, without light, is meaningless. True power lies in finding the balance between the two.

"Blah, blah, blah. Okay, completely meaningless intro. Get to the point!" I snapped impatiently, carefully flipping a page.

Thus the gateways between worlds will always be governed by both light and darkness. To travel the worlds, therefore, one needs both the darkness and light, inside the heart. Do not fear the darkness within yourself, but do not allow the waters to drown the fire that is the light, for that path leads only to destruction. Likewise, do not, in fear, try to push the darkness away, for that leads only to delusion. If you can find in within yourself to accept both your own light and your own darkness, the door will open.

"What does that mean? Accept my own light and my own darkness?"

I sighed and looked at the other pages, but it was just more on the same theme of light and darkness. No more hints about travel between the worlds. Drat these philosophers and their fancy way of saying everything! Couldn't they just be straightforward? No, they had to be all mystic and cryptic. Granted, there was a great deal of any magic that had to be within yourself, that you really couldn't teach, couldn't even explain. I remember the instructions for learning a fire spell were all of one sentence, "Visualize the heat, and make it happen." Great. Thanks for all the help.

That's why magic was so frustrating. Learning a new spell meant unlearning things you'd spent years learning. Even for the simplest spells, reality had to become flexible, and that was the hardest part of it. You had to be able to convince your own senses that what you were seeing, hearing, feeling, wasn't real, and whatever impossibility you were imagining was. You had to convince your own mind that it was possible for fire to spring out of nowhere, that it was possible to turn gravity on and off as you wished. You had to be able to accept the fact that there were many versions of reality, each one equally feasible, and each existing and at the same time not existing. Any scholar will tell you, the one reason people do not go mad is because they can block out any information that doesn't match their perception of the world. So I guess to be a mage, you have to be a bit mad.

"Okay. Visualize the light and the dark. Accept both. Oy."

I took the pages downstairs, and found Riku on his usual spot on the couch in the front room. It was strange, he'd been here just over two weeks, but I was already so comfortable in his presence. It was nice to just know someone was there. We didn't even need to be in the same room; just knowing that he was there was enough. I'd always been rather solitary, and nine years alone had only enforced the old habits. But, probably because I'd been alone so long, I reasoned, I was always glad to see him. We could spend hours talking—I always felt kind of dumb, since really all I had to talk about had happened almost a decade ago—and still I felt no urge to leave. I wanted to stay. I just stood on the top of the stairs, looking down at his form stretched out of the couch. He'd discarded the shirt, because of the lace, and his muscular chest just begged me to . . . 'Ah! Let's stop that train of thought, shall we?'

I walked down the stairs and stood for a minute in front of the couch. He didn't even look up from his novel. 'Oh yeah, I read that one. I wonder if he's at the part where the killer . . .okay. More important things than mystery novels here.'

"I found something."

He looked up at me, "What?"

"Well, I'm not saying 'Pack your bags,' but I found something that might help us get off this miserable planet."

He looked disbelievingly at the yellowed papers in my hands, "Unless you're hiding some gummi blocks and rockets, I don't see our solution."

I sighed impatiently, and resisted the urge to hit him over the head with the papers—they were fragile after all—"No, it says in here that magical transportation between the worlds is possible."

He raised one eyebrow, but seemed to be listening.

"But it's not very clear—I'm still trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do, exactly."

He sat up and gestured for me to sit next to him, "What does it say?"

I sat down. Our shoulders touched, and I felt a jolt go through me. I puzzled over it for a moment, the tingling, shivering feeling, but shrugged it off, "It just says, 'accept the light and the darkness within yourself.'"

He wrinkled his nose. It was a cute expression. What am I saying? Cute? "Clear as mud."

"I know," I pouted, "These stupid mystics are never straightforward," I waved my hands mystically and crossed my eyes, "Feel the balance of the universe within you. Hear the voice of the mountain, see the colors of the wind."

He lightly punched my arm, laughing, "Who makes up that stuff?"

I laughed back, "Ah!" I winced as my eyes snapped back to normal, "Oww . . .I don't know. Maybe they think they sound deep or something. Oh," I said, more serious, "There is a problem, though."

His smile fell, "What?"

"I don't know what this place looks like. You know what it looks like, but you don't know teleportation. We're going to have to find a way around that."

"We'll figure something out."

I raised an eyebrow, "Confident."

"Yeah! I mean, we just figure out what we gotta do, and we do it, right? Nothin' more to it."

It almost reminded me of being with Ansem again. There are no impossibilities. I just looked at the fire, burning, light. I knew if I turned around and looked through the large windows, I'd see the sun setting. Light, quickly becoming dark. Light. Dark. I suddenly felt very tired, and leaned against Riku's chest, half-lidded eyes watching the fire. I felt him put his arm around me. It was nice, just sitting there. The lamps started lighting themselves, and I sighed, before reluctantly dragging myself up, "Good-night, Riku."

"Going to bed so early?"

"Nah, back to the library—I know we have a couple of books about teleportation."

We. I'd said 'we' instead of 'I'. Since when was it his library?

He wrinkled his nose again, "Do you have to look it up now? You look tired. Give it a break, we'll do it tomorrow."

I shook my head, "Nope. I've spent long enough in this castle. The sooner we figure out how to get out of here, the better."

"Okay," he sighed and stretched, "If you're going to be that way about it," he mumbled, standing up.

"Oh, I can do it. Don't worry. You're reading your book."

He rolled his eyes, "Well, I can't leave you there all alone. You might decide that since I didn't help, you'd just leave me here."

"I wouldn't do that!" 'To you,' I wanted to add, but adding those two words just seemed so . . .too close. Too close.

"Well then, I'll just keep you from falling asleep up there. After all, the books will be useless if you drool on them all night."

"I do not drool!" I protested, raising a hand in a mock punch. He anticipated it, and dodged, running up the stairs.

"Hey, that's not fair!" I shouted, chasing him to the library, "Come back heeeeeeere!"


	4. Simple And Clean

A/N: Yes, I stole the chapter name from the song. I couldn't help it! Please forgive me! (Bows so hard she hits her head on the desk and falls over unconscious)

Disclaimer: Do I need to say it again? (sighs) Aries28 does not own or is any way affiliated with the Disney or Square characters used in this fic.

**Chapter 4: Simple and Clean**

_Darkness. Does it invade from without, or consume from within? Those creatures under the castle . . .were they beings created from darkness or people that had succumbed to the darkness within them?_

"What are you doing?" Two small hands appeared on the edge of the desk, with brown hair and two dark blue eyes swiftly following. No amount of tip-toeing could get her head higher than that, and she knew he wouldn't approve of her pulling herself up by her arms, like Kairi did all the time. Kairi shouldn't even be allowed in the lab. All she did was touch things and leave greasy fingerprints on them and sit on top of the desk and bother him. She was always very careful to ask before doing anything, to be very quiet, to wait. Kairi couldn't even appreciate the lab—she always got bored and ran back to play with Marlene or Ellone, or maybe asked Grandma to tell her a story. Well, what could you expect? Kairi was just five, practically a baby. Amaya was nine, practically grown up! Of course she would be able to understand things that little Kairi couldn't!

He smiled, "Just thinking about things. You can come sit over here if you like."

She tried to keep from bouncing with excitement—that wasn't a very grown-up thing to do—and walked around that desk as he rolled the chair back, making plenty of room for her to sit in his lap.

She sighed happily, cuddling against him as he leaned over, pointing at one of the charts in front of him, "See that?"

She nodded, "Uh-huh."

"That's graphing the number of those things down under the castle."

Her eyes widened, "They're growing that fast?"

She felt his chin move just to the side of her head as he nodded.

"How come?"

"I don't know. That's what I'm trying to figure out."

"Oh," she waited a few quiet seconds before venturing, "Do you know what they are yet?"

"All I've been able to determine is that they have no emotions—no feelings," he explained.

"I know what emotions are," she protested, slightly bristling at the fact that he thought he had to explain to her. She wasn't some dumb baby!

He chuckled, a rumble reverberating through her shoulders and back, "Of course you do," he ruffled one hand through her hair, "You're such a smart girl."

She beamed. She loved getting compliments from him. She loved being his smart girl. It didn't matter that Kairi was the cute one if she was the smart one.

They spent the rest of that afternoon going over the entries to his report and different charts and graphs. Amaya asked a few times if she was getting in the way, but he always smiled and said Of course not, I need an extra pair of eyes around here.

She looked at the sun, and orange ball sinking on the horizon, sending rainbows through every waterfall on the way down. Then she quickly looked back to the books he had asked her to put back on the shelves. What would he think if he caught her excited about rainbows, like some little kid? They were just the sunlight reflecting through water, splitting the light into its colors. Nothing special about it.

"They're pretty, aren't they?" He pointed out the window, "The rainbows?"

She snorted and raised one eyebrow, "Yeah, I guess."

He raised an eyebrow, "I thought you liked rainbows?"

She did like rainbows, "Yeah, but it's so simple. Nothing too special about it, really."

"On the contrary," he said, beckoning to her and wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders as he knelt and pointed down to the waterfall, "Just because it's simple doesn't mean it isn't special. When you're older, you'll start to wish everything is as simple as a rainbow. Just light and water, two of the most common things on the planet, and you get such a beautiful array of colors. You don't have to change anything, or create any artificial conditions; it exists on its own. Simple and clean."

She was glad to have a reason to like rainbows again, even if she did feel the mild rebuke in his statements. The clock rang.

_Dong._

_Dong._

_Dong._

_Dong._

_Dong._

_Dong._

_Dong._

"Seven o'clock? I didn't realize I'd kept you in here that long. You must be getting hungry," he apologized, standing and removing the warmth of his arm from her shoulder. She missed it, but wouldn't ask to hold his hand. She wasn't a little kid.

"Are you going to eat with us tonight?"

"No, not tonight. I still have some work to do."

She tried to hide her disappointment. Grandma said that he just didn't like the noise of having so many people around, that he had always been like that. But they used to eat together, sometimes. Before Mama died.

"Can I come tomorrow?"

"Of course you can. Goodnight, Amaya."

She ran to the open door, peaking her head back in just before she closed it, "Goodnight, Papa."


	5. I Gotta Get Out Of This Place

A/N: Hmm. No reviews. And yet I update. Oh, well. Someday, someone will appreciate my artistic genius! (is hit with many rotten tomatoes) Or not . . .

Disclaimer: Back to basics. I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of the wonderful characters that Disney or Square created. I do own my original character Amaya. That's it. Nothing clever. Just read the darn story.

**I Gotta Get Out Of This Place**

I bit back a yawn as I poured over another shelf of books. How long before she decided to call it a night?

_Dong._

_Dong._

It felt like I'd spent my whole life in this library, running a hand over worn spines, flipping through dusty pages, bent over to look at a bottom shelf, scaling ladders to see a higher one. And, judging by the size of the library, I would be spending the rest of my pathetic life here.

"Find anything?"

I glanced up, "No," I sighed. How could she be so awake at a time like this? I resisted the urge to rub my eyes.

"Oh! You're tired! Go to bed, I can keep looking,"

"No, that's okay . . ."

"Come on, if I haven't found it in nine years, we don't have to find it tonight! I just thought that an extra brain, privy to information that I am not privy to, might help, that's all."

"Privy?" I raised an eyebrow, "Did you just say 'privy'?"

She tilted her head to one side and put her fists on her hips, "And what, pray tell, is wrong with the word 'privy'?"

I snickered, looking back toward the shelf, "Nothing, 'milady'."

"Ooh, yooouuu! What is wrong with my speech?"

"Nothing is wrong with your "speech", milady, except for it sounds like a middle school play of King Arthur! Maybe these clothes are rubbing off on you."

"I do not sound like that!"

"Whatever your ladyship says."

Without warning, I was flat on the floor, and . . . "Aah! Please . . .Amaya. . ."

"Oooh," Amaya cackled, "Someone's ticklish!"

"Noo! Not fair!" I cried as her fingers mercilessly danced over my stomach and then up to my neck. I threw my head to one side, trapping her hand there, caught her wrist in one of my hands. She fought to escape, but I wasn't going to let her tickle me again. I squirmed helplessly, laughing and reaching for the other hand, always leaping just out of my reach. It hesitated between another assault of my side and one under my arm. Got it!

"Ah! Noo!" She wailed her defeat, hands trapped.

"Hahahaha! Riku is victorious!" I crowed, holding her hands like trophies. She was still leaning over me, her face flushed, laughing for all she was worth. Her arms started shaking, holding almost all of her body weight on hands that I was keeping suspended in the air. Her arms bent at the same moment I rested my elbows on the floor, resulting in her suddenly being a lot closer. Our noses almost bumped. We stopped laughing.

She looked startled. I hoped I looked cool. I probably looked startled. It probably only lasted for a second, but it felt like hours of her deep blue eyes staring at me. I knew those eyes. I _knew_ I knew those eyes. At the moment, it didn't matter, though. I was more concerned with her soft pink lips, still slightly open from her gasping laughter. I don't know what I thought, or if I was even thinking. It was like brain static, just repeating meaningless thoughts over and over; completely incapable of making the jump to what was happening. It felt like I waited for days trying to decide before I finally closed my eyes and lifted my head off the floor to close the distance between us. And then, I felt her push herself up and away, laughing again.

"Okay, you win this time, but you better watch your back!"

I tried to laugh. It sounded hollow and false in my own ears, "Yeah, whatever. Bring it on, I'm always the champ!"

She snorted in derision, "We'll see about that."

The clock chimed a short melody, marking the quarter of an hour. She looked up in surprise.

"Oh! It's a quarter after two! No wonder you're tired! You really should go to bed; get some sleep."

I searched the lines desperately for some sort of veiled come-on, but came up with nothing. Damn.

"Really, I'm not—" I yawned, "Tired."

She just rolled her eyes and laughed at me again, waving me away. "I'll probably be going to bed soon myself."

I _was_ tired. The brief adrenaline rush had quickly burned itself out, leaving me feeling almost too lazy to make it up the stairs to my room. When I did make it to the stairs, I just stood for a minute, looking at them. Stairs. Those require effort. Ug.

12,723 stairs later . . .or maybe just one floor, who can keep track . . .I finally flopped on the bed, not bothering to look around the room for any medieval pajamas. I lay there, sideways with everything knees down hanging off the bed, before I toed off my shoes and crawled under the covers. I didn't even have time to snuggle into the pillow before I was asleep.

"Good morrow, fair knight!"

Ug. Only one person that could be. I pulled the blankets over my head. "Amaya. I just went to sleep. It's the middle of the night. And you're still talking like some Round Table reject."

She giggled. Giggled. At this ungodly hour of the morning. "_That_ one was in jest, silly. Who would say 'Good morrow'? And you did not just go to sleep—it's almost eleven o'clock!"

In jest? Oh God, she really is beyond help. "What's so important that I can't sleep?"

"I think I might have found out way out of here."

My eyes opened wide.

I raised my eyebrows as she pointed at our "solution."

"'Mind-Bonding for Idiots'? I don't know, Amaya . . ."

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair, "What exactly is 'Mind-Bonding'?"

Her face grew serious, "It's when two or more minds become bound together. It's only temporary . . .but if I can get inside your head, I can see what this other world looks like, so I can transport us there."

Inside my head? She couldn't! She couldn't know what was in there. There were things I definitely didn't want her seeing. She wouldn't understand. She would never trust me again. "I don't want you inside my head!"

She rolled her eyes, "It's not like I'm going to look through all your deepest darkest secrets. I couldn't even if I wanted to. Just because we're mind-bonded doesn't mean that we hear _all_ of each other's thoughts. It just opens up another mode of communication, so you can send me the picture. Besides, like I said, it's only temporary."

I had a bad feeling about this. And not bad like "Hmm, this might be a bad idea" bad. Bad like the kind of disasters that only the cockroaches survive. I had to protest. I opened my mouth, "Okay."

Okay? Okay!? Where the hell did that come from!?

"Alright then let's—"

"Wait," I put a finger on her forehead, "What happens if this goes wrong?"

"Nothing. Well," she thought, "We'll have one heck of a headache—especially if we hit the barrier. But it should be easier for the two of us to break free than it would be if I were doing this alone."

I moved back, "What? I don't know any magic, you'll be carrying me!"

"That's where the mind-bond comes in. You won't be able to work magic, exactly, but for a short time, we're going to be connected. We'll both be thinking about the same place, and that helps. And," she looked a little sheepish, "I was thinking I'd be able to borrow some power from you."

"From me?"

Before I could finish my protest, she said, "You don't have to know magic to have it. It exists in all living things. The only difference between mages and everyone else is that a mage can manipulate the power. But we don't have enough power to do things by ourselves—no being has that much power inside them. You have to borrow it from the environment around you. But, when you approach the barrier of this world, and when you're in the space in-between, there's not enough energy to keep yourself going, so you fall back to square one."

Well, that made sense. In the way the nuclear physics make sense, I guess.

"So, seeing as you're the only living thing that will be close enough, I'm going to need to draw some energy from you."

I just nodded. Okay. Sure. Whatever.

"Do you honestly think this is going to work?"

"Sh," Amaya soothed, "I need to concentrate."

I felt like a complete idiot. We were sitting across from each other on the floor, our open palms touching. We'd been sitting there for almost five full minutes and it felt like, you know, something should be happening.

"Is there something I should be doing?"

An irritated sigh escaped her mouth, "You can start by being quiet, and then, if you could just relax? You don't need to be nervous."

"Who said I was nervous?"

"Well, for one thing, your hands are shaking. For another, you have your mind completely closed off from mine. I told you, it's not like I'm gonna go poking around in there. And," she opened her eyes, adjusting her pose so she could put her hand on my shoulder, "even if some images bleed over, I've lost my world, too. I know the sort of things you see. I can deal with it, so don't worry about hiding it from me."

Yeah, right. My world disappearing. That's what I was afraid of her seeing. How about the fact that I'd allowed some guy, barely more than a Heartless himself, to possess my body and use it to try and kill my friends? Nah, I'm worried she'll see the night my island disappeared.

She resumed her previous posture, legs crossed, hands out in front of her. I tried to breathe. She won't see it. She won't see it. I held out my hands, our palms touching, fingers spread, touching. Her hands were so small. The ends of her fingers barely passed my first knuckle.

"Think of the place we're going. Make the picture as clear as you can."

A wooden gate. Stone streets, neon signs. Shops, restaurants, cafes, street lamps. A few small trees. Balconies overhead. People everywhere.

_Traverse Town._

I started, my eyes snapped open. I heard her voice, but I didn't.

"Don't be so jumpy! Now I lost it. Think about it again."

I reconstructed the street, and I heard her again, there in my head.

_Okay, I see it._

It was like the feeling before your ears popped, only all over my entire body. Everything was pushing down, and when I opened my eyes, all I saw was a blur—black stone, wilted trees, stormy skies with gray clouds rushing steadily toward us. Too fast!

_Don't stop thinking of Traverse Town! Keep that picture in your head! We're coming close to the barrier!_

I tried. Stone streets, street lamps, buildings, balconies, Traverse Town. The pressure was building. It was going to kill me, leave me a flat bloody mess, plummeting back to earth.

Then my ears popped.

It was cold. Bone-aching, teeth-cracking cold. That, at least, was familiar.

_We've passed the barrier! Hold on, hold on!_

I couldn't breathe. I saw things flashing in front of my eyes. That first time in that Secret Cave, when I'd first discovered the door. Years later, when I'd found Ansem there. Sora's face as he struggled to reach my hand without stepping into the shadows pooling at my feet. Maleficent. Hollow Bastion. Kairi laughing. Kairi still. Ansem offering me the power to take the Keyblade. Ansem, in the library. Ansem staring out the window, thinking. Ansem, offering me the new Keyblade. Fighting Sora. Ansem smiling at something. Ansem opening the door.

Then everything was dark.


	6. One Small Problem

A/N:Well, hopefully I'vefixedall the formatting issues from last upload. Happy reading!

Wow! I actually need a "Thank the reviewers" section! Cool!

TenchiKai and Kitoru-san: Thank you! I'm glad you enjoy it. And look, I updated quickly, just for you!

Ice Dagger: Your reviews always encourage me to write more! Thank you for reviewing; even though you're my beta reader, it means a lot. If anyone's reading this, go check out Ice Dagger's stories "Three Knights" (Suikoden III), "Forest Children" (Inuyasha).

Disclaimer: Hey! I get guest stars!

Riku: If by "guest stars" you mean people that you tied to chairs . . .(tries to escape ropes)

A28: My Riku! (Huggles)

Riku: So . . .why am I here?

A28: For the disclaimer.

Riku: Oh. (Turns his head toward readers) Though she may wish otherwise, she sure as heck doesn't own me.

A28: Sad, but true.

Riku: And she doesn't own Kingdom Hearts, either.

A28: (Waves him on, too heart-broken to continue)

Riku: But she does own Amaya.

A28: Unfortunately, Amaya is not a sexy guy, like Riku or Leon or Cloud, or . . .

Riku: --; Let's stop right there, shall we? And get me off this chair!

A28: (Smiles) Unh-unh!

**Chapter 6: One Small Problem**

"Sora . . .I don't understand. Why didn't it restore the worlds?"

"I don't know," he answered gloomily. "I shut the doors like I was supposed to. I even made it to the final door—Kingdom Hearts—and closed that one, too."

I gave his hand a squeeze. I knew the crash of disappointment that he was feeling. He had gone through all that trouble, traveling to so many worlds to find a way to close the final door.

And now we were back where we started. Well, not quite. The worlds were restored, in a way, but there were a lot of things that were still wrong. The Heartless were still around for one thing. Not as powerful as they had been after Kingdom Hearts had been opened, but still enough to worry us. They should have been gone. The worlds, and all the people, should have been restored to the way they were, all closed off. But they weren't. They were still open, and . . .some people hadn't come back.

Suddenly, Sora stopped, right in front of me, so fast I almost ran into him. His shoulders were bent, and he was looking straight at the cobblestones when I heard him mumble, "Kairi, how did I screw up so bad?"

"Sora?"

"I shut him in that place . . .alone. I thought . . .I thought after I closed it, and the worlds were restored, he would be back on the island. With us. With everyone. Did I . . .did I kill him?"

Tears were worming their way into his voice, making it harsh and brittle. His shoulders started shaking, "Did I kill my best friend?"

I let go of his hand so I could hug him close to me, "No, Sora. You thought . . .we all thought that he would be coming back with us."

He sobbed, "That doesn't change the fact that he's gone! And I didn't even hesitate! I just said, 'Okay', and handed him a death sentence right on a plate!"

Luckily I was holding him too close for him to see my surprise. I knew he felt guilty, but I didn't think it was anything like this.

"You did not, Sora. Riku's going to be all right. That's why we're here, right? To see Leon and Aerith and Yuffie, and to save Riku!"

He nodded against my damp shoulder, taking shuddering breaths, "I'm sorry Kairi, I know I shouldn't have fallen apart like that . . ."

"Hey, I'm here to help you however I can. Let's just face it," I said, smiling, "You need all the help you can get!"

He let out a watery laugh onto my shoulder, "Gee, thanks a lot Kairi."

"Like I said, always here to help."

He unwrapped his arms from my waist and rubbed as his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying to banish any moisture that was still handing on his eyelashes. Then, with his trademark grin, "I know."

I took his hand back in mine and we walked toward the small house in Third District, "Let's just hope they're still around . . ."

My mouth gaped open. Small house? Did I say small house? They must have done some major renovation here, because I didn't remember it looking like that!

Sora muttered out the side of his mouth, "Are you sure this is the right house?"

I nodded mutely.

"Then where'd all the extra rooms come from?"

I shrugged, "We can ask them once we get inside," I knocked on the door before continuing, "It's freezing out here!" Rubbing my arms for emphasis.

"Then why do you wear those little skirts all the time?"

I sashayed wickedly, "You never used to complain about these skirts before . . ." I watched the look on his face before innocently continuing, "If you don't like them I think I have some sweatpants or something . . ."

He pouted, "Hey, I wasn't complaining," and pulled me back against him.

I giggled, "I know, but I couldn't pass that up," and kissed his nose.

"Ahem."

We turned around, and noticed Leon staring at us from the doorway, "Ummm, hi!"

He raised an eyebrow, "You knocked, didn't you?"

"Oh," I said, pulling free of Sora's embrace. Darn it, he was warm. "Yeah, we did. Sorry to keep you waiting there."

He just shrugged and walked back into the house. Since he didn't slam the door, we took it as an invitation to come in.

"Sora! Kairi!" Cried Yuffie, launching herself off the sofa and grabbing us in a group hug, "How ya been?"

"Yuffie . . .can't . . ._breathe_ . . ."

"Oh, right!"

As usual Mr. Grumpster—I mean, Leon—wasted no time with pleasantries, "You know that the worlds haven't been restored."

The smiles faded, "Yeah," Sora started, "That's why we—Kairi and I—came back here. We thought, you know, you guys might know something about it."

"Nope. We're clueless!" Yuffie admitted, grinning her head off. I think it annoyed Leon that she looked so happy about it, but that was just how she was. Come to think of it . . .does she know how _not_ to grin?

"You don't have any idea of why, Sora?" Asked Aerith, walking in from the hallway.

He hung his head, "No."

"But we're gonna find out, right Sora?" I squeezed his hand.

He nodded, "Right!"

"Ummm, anyway . . ." I ventured, "Did you guys remodel or something?"

Aerith laughed, "You could say that. Actually, the other rooms behind us had been attached to the house at some point, but someone built a wall over the doorway, blocking it off. After the incident with . . .well, never mind that . . ." Sora and I looked at each other, but Aerith ignored us and continued, "We discovered that the space behind the wall was hollow! All the extra rooms needed was a little cleaning up. Let me give you a tour!"

Yuffie's voice echoed sinisterly after us as Aerith led us down the hallway, "Oh, I should have warned you—Aerith's new hobby is interior decorating!"

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After what felt like an hour of oohing and ahhing and "Those colors complement each other so well," and "What great window treatments," we were finally allowed to escape. I flopped down on the living room couch, "Uggh."

Yuffie laughed at me, and even Leon "coughed" into his hand. I stuck out my bottom lip—I do _not_ pout—and crossed my arms over my chest, "What are you laughing at?"

Yuffie waved her hand, "Just be glad you weren't here while the decorating was going on," Yuffie grabbed a pillow and, in an obvious impersonation of Aerith, said, "Now guys, be honest. What would go better with this fabric, olive or sea foam?"

This time I laughed with her, but Leon got right back to business, "Why don't you stay here a while, Sora?"

"Huh?"

"It'll be easier to find information here than it would be on your island, right? So you can stay here while you get some leads."

"Oh, uh, thanks, Leon."

He just grunted and nodded, probably deciding to ignore everyone for the rest of the night. Just then I heard a girl's voice yelp. I jumped up, reaching for my keyblade, but paused when Yuffie and Leon didn't move. Hadn't they heard it? I opened my mouth to ask when I heard, "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

I looked questioningly at Yuffie, who just rolled her eyes, "Don't worry, Sora, it's just Cloud. Mr. Silent gets his kicks by sneaking up on people. Especially poor defenseless Aeriths. And then it's just better to steer clear, unless you _want_ to watch them make out."

I shook my head quickly and sat back down.

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It was dark and so cold. So cold. I couldn't see anything, just light and dark and shapes that might have been worlds or might have just been shadows. Then images.

The library. The sun setting on an ocean. A small, brown haired boy. A door without a doorknob, in a cave. A figure in a black cloak. A woman in black. A young girl . . .Kairi? The girl, older, lying frighteningly still. Ansem. His mouth moving, without sound. Ansem in the library, with me. Ansem staring out the window, after I'd asked him about the other worlds. Ansem with a strange sword in his hands. The brown-haired boy again. Ansem smiling, reaching down to ruffle my hair. Ansem, his face bathed in light.

Some of those were mine. I knew others weren't. Who was the brown-haired boy? Who was the woman in black? What was that sword Ansem had? Had that young girl been Kairi?

_Darkness is the heart's true essence. You cannot deny it. Return to the darkness!_

Other images. More than I could count. Coming too fast. A blood red ball in the sky, spewing clouds of noxious purple. Screams. The Heartless. Women, girls, their faces frozen, lying inside glass coffins. _Princesses. We need one more heart to . . ._More screams, rising higher and higher in pitch, as I saw trees obliterated, islands sinking into the oceans around them, cities cracking apart at the foundations. A million voices screaming, and then utter silence.

Something cold and hard beneath my cheek. Stone. I moved my head and saw Riku, still holding my hand, out cold. Lights. Blinding lights. Buildings. Balconies. Traverse Town.

I half-slithered closer, wrapping an arm around him and snuggling against him. _We made it, Riku. Everything's going to be all right. _But sleep would be good now. Very good.

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He raised his eyebrow at her, "Shouldn't you be, I don't know, playing hide-and-seek or something?"

"I don't want to," she pouted, "I want to hang out with you!"

He sighed expansively, while Aeris chided him, "Oh, don't be such a grump, Squall," she smiled at Amaya, "We're just going down to the waterfalls, but if you'd like to come, you can."

Amaya nodded quickly, anything to be allowed near Squall. Boys were dumb, but, as she had quickly explained to her grandmother, Squall and Papa didn't really count as boys. Boys were noisy and annoying, and wouldn't let her join in anything just because she was a girl. Papa and Squall didn't do that.

And there was something about Squall that made her heart beat fast, and her laughter come out high and giggly, and made her draw hearts and write "Amaya Leonhart" all over everything. Well, anything that no one would look at, anyway. It had to stay top secret, until she was a grown-up and old enough to marry him.

"Fine, come on. But if you get tired, you're just going to have to tough it out. I'm not going to carry you."

"Okay!" She quickly agreed, running past all the cooing girls to latch on to Squall's hand.

"How cute!" Tittered the girls. Squall didn't look at them, or at the child at his side, but he didn't tear his hand away. And as they made their way down the rocks, he always turned around to help her hop the really big jumps.

When they got to the bottom, they all stripped down to their swimsuits and jumped into the sun-warmed water. Squall laughed, splash fighting with some of the guys, until they accidentally splashed a girl with dark brown hair. She stormed over with every intention of giving them a piece of her mind, but Squall just pulled her over and kissed her.

Amaya had been swimming in the shallower water with some of the older girls, holding their own splash war, on a much smaller scale. But she saw Rinoa, one of her chief playmates, swim over to the boys, and had watched as she kissed Squall and failed to come back to their group.

Amaya touched one of the girls' arms, "Selphie?"

"Yeah?"

"Is Rinoa going to marry Squall?"

Selphie smiled, "Umm, I don't think so. At least not anytime soon."

"Good."

She tilted her head to one side, "Why?"

She formed a tunnel around her mouth with her hands and whispered loudly, "Can you keep a secret?"

Selphie nodded and made a great show of leaning her ear down to the little girl, "Because I'm going to marry him, when I'm a grown-up."

"Really?" Selphie whispered conspiratorially, "Can I come to the wedding?"

Amaya nodded enthusiastically, "Yeah, but don't tell Squall yet, okay?"

"You're secret's safe with me, kiddo!"

They swam until the sun started sinking in the sky, and decided they had to start back up the rocks before it got too dark. After helping her squeegee out her hair, Selphie wrapped a colorful towel around her, but, forgetting to thank her, Amaya quickly ran ahead and wedged herself between Squall and Rinoa, grabbing Squall's hand. When Rinoa took her other, she didn't complain. After all, Rinoa _was_ really nice. She just couldn't marry Squall.

It didn't take long, though, before her feet grew heavy, and she tripped more and more. She stopped jumping the rocks and started laboriously climbing. But she wouldn't ask for help, even as her eyelids started drooping. She started when the two hands she'd been holding withdrew, but then she saw Squall squat down, his back toward her, "Climb up."

She was too tired to argue, and, truth be told, she didn't want to, so she clamored up loosely wrapping her arms around her neck. It wasn't long before the weight on his back became limp, the little girl lost in sleep.


	7. Traverse Town

A/N: Warning! Cloud and Leon are OOC. I'm sorry about that, but I just can't help having them tease Amaya. Blame Cloud's new attitude on being with Aerith and Leon's new attitude on . . .um . . .moogle plushies?

On the bright side, this chapter is uber long! Remember to push the pretty purple button and review!

Ice Dagger: Thank you again, my dear, for the review. Here's chapter seven!

TenchiKai: Well, of course you got a shout-out! If I let you know you're appreciated, perhaps you will review again? (Big puppy eyes) Pweeeeeease?

Disclaimer:

Riku: Hey, how'd you guys get here?

Chibi Cloud: I dunno.

Chibi Squall: Whatever.

A28: They're here to help with the disclaimer!

Riku, Chibi Cloud and Chibi Leon: She don't own anything!

A28: Except Amaya!

Chibi Cloud: And no one wants her anyway.

Riku: Well, go on and read it. The sooner this fic's over, the sooner we get out of here.

Rabid fan girls on A28's front lawn: "Free Riku! Free Riku! Free Riku!

A28: (Huggles Riku) Watashi no!

Chibi Squall: Whatever.

A28: Huggles Squall Thank you for your inspirational words oh mighty commander! They get me right here! (Places fist on chest, eyes tearing) Now, faithful audience, read on!

**Chapter 7: Traverse Town**

Yuffie looked at me, "Do you really think it's her?"

I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms, "It's been a while. We can't be sure." If it was, why had she taken so long to get to Traverse Town? Most people will give refugees a ride, at least this far, because they know how it is to wake up all alone. Everyone eventually ended up in Traverse Town, but it had been . . .nine years. She hadn't made any effort to find us.

"But wouldn't it be great if it was?" She pressed.

Would it be? I mean, the last time I saw her, she was a little girl. Quiet, shy, reserved. She used to follow me around all the time, instead of hanging with the other kids her age. She used to follow Ansem around a lot too. But she'd just been a kid; she hadn't known. None of us had known. But still, why didn't she try to find us?

"It's getting late, you should head back to bed."

Yuffie looked at me indignantly. She wanted to stay and see if it was really Amaya as much as I did. But I needed to be alone.

"But—"

"Aerith is going to need someone to watch the other kid so she can get some sleep. Take care of it."

She nodded, still looking reluctant, but happy that she was helping someone, "Okay!"

Aerith got cranky when she didn't sleep. Like a bear awakened from hibernation cranky. Like a snake that's been stepped on cranky. And while I could easily avoid her, Cloud couldn't, and he would make all our lives miserable for as long as he was miserable. So just send Aerith to bed, send Yuffie to watch the other kid, problem solved. (A/N: Isn't he smart?)

I heard sheets rustle as the girl snuggled into the blankets. It was hard to tell if it was her. A kid changes in nine years, after all. I'd kept looking at her while Cloud and I had carried her and the boy back to the hotel. Her hair was darker than I remembered; her face had lost the baby fat. I could see her chest rising and falling as she breathed, and she certainly didn't have a child's body any more.

"Squall?"

I looked at the questioning face. The voice was unfamiliar, hesitant. But she'd known my name.

"It's Leon, now."

Her hands went to her mouth, "Then it really is you! That means we made it out!" She sat up, quickly, "Wait—Squ-Leon? Where's Riku? Is he all right?"

I crossed the room and sat in the chair Yuffie had put near the bed, "Kid with silver hair?"

"Yeah! That's him!"

"He's fine," I let my mouth twitch up. Just a little. "We had a hard time prying you apart to get you here."

"Wha-What?" She was blushing. She used to do that when she was little, too, whenever she'd been embarrassed. It made the adult face a little more familiar.

"Yeah, there you were, passed out on the street, and still wouldn't let go of each other."

"That's just because of the teleportation! If we'd let go, we would have lost each other!"

Teleportation? They had teleported over worlds? Was that possible? And why would they need to?

"I've been stuck. On another world for . . .for a long time."

"How long?"

"Since Hollow Bastion fell."

I tried to hold the shock out of my face and, judging from her expression, failed badly. "Where were you?"

"I don't know. I was alone. Then out of the blue, literally, Riku ended up there. We teleported out, with each other's help. I . . ." she didn't look me in the eye, "wasn't strong enough to make it out by myself."

Why was she looking down? Was she lying? Or was she ashamed that she hadn't been strong enough to get out alone?

Then I saw a drop of moisture fall on the blanket. Then another. She launched herself at me, throwing her arms around her neck, sobbing into my shoulder, "I can't believe I'm finally out! And you're here!"

I awkwardly put my arms around her, rubbing a hand in circles on her back. I don't know if it actually did any good, but I remember my mom used to do that for me when I cried. Back when I was a little kid. Real little.

"There's a few of us here. Yuffie, Aerith, Cloud, Cid, and me."

She cried for a while on my shoulder, then sniffled, "Is it true, about my father?"

Oh, crap. This was not a conversation I wanted to be in. This was something Aerith should be handling.

She pushed herself away from me, drying her eyes on the back of her hands, "Riku . . .Riku said that the darkness killed him. Ate him from the inside out. Was he . . .did he . . .?"

I didn't know what to say. We'd all been depending on finding him, too. We thought he would be the one to guide us in the fight against the Heartless. Yeah, when I was still stupidly dreaming of holding the Keyblade myself. Of avenging all those people I hadn't been able to save. Of bringing them back. I still remember hearing all those people around me, watching them fall. This little girl's shrill scream had been the last one I'd heard before everything was gone.

And all that had been Ansem's fault. He'd been the one to invite the Heartless. First to our world, then to others.

Her hands fisted, angry, "Did he really do those things?"

I couldn't look at her face. "Yes."

"He really destroyed all those worlds?"

"He destroyed ours."

She looked at me in shock, "No . . ."

"He was experimenting with the Heartless, and he got in over his head."

"And . . .and did he really plan on leaving those girls without their hearts?"

"The princesses? Yeah."

"What did he want with them?"

"They were the Princesses of Heart. Supposedly, there are seven people with the purest hearts, and they were it. He needed all their hearts to open the door into the Heart of Worlds."

"The Heart of Worlds?"

"It's supposed to be where the eternal light, and eternal darkness, is. The heart of everything."

"So, he was using them to get to it. He was using their hearts." She was just sitting still, hands still fisted, "You're lying."

Now I was angry, "I'm not lying. If you're too weak to face the truth, that's your problem."

"I am _not_ weak!" She shouted, grabbing the color of my jacket and pulling me over to face her, our faces inches apart.

"Then accept the truth. He was swallowed by the darkness."

Her hand dropped, "How could he be? How could he fall into something like that? How could he use his own _daughter_ like that?"

Now I was confused. What was she talking about?

She saw the look on my face, "Kairi."

Kairi. That Kairi was . . .our Kairi? I hadn't even recognized her. She obviously didn't remember us. I hadn't even made the connection that she was Amaya's sister. Ansem's daughter. Ansem had planned on stealing his own daughter's heart.

"He told me to just stay there, stay in that castle, he'd come back for me, once he found Kairi. He didn't tell me anything about this."

She started crying again.

* * *

"Riku . . .Riku . . .Riku!"

I sat up, but quickly regretted it, "Damn. It feels like a bunch of rhinoceros played croquet with my head . . ."

Then I opened my eyes and saw who'd been calling me. Sora. It was Sora. And Kairi.

"Can't a guy get some rest?" I groaned, trying hard to keep up the confidence I'd always kept up around them. Testing the waters, seeing if our friendship was still going to work. I felt more like crying and giving them both a huge hug and asking did we really get out of there okay, are we all here, are we still friends, but that's not how it works. If we were still friends, we'd all pick up the same roles. Riku was confident and smart and way too grown up for crying. So that's who I was.

"I'm so glad you're okay, Riku."

That was Sora. Sora was always supposed to be second, always barely behind, but enthusiastic and smiling where I was cool and calm. That was his role. I wondered if he felt as detached from that role as I did from mine right now. But it didn't matter, not really.

"We were really worried, you know?"

Kairi. Always sweet, pretending to be completely oblivious to her long legs and developing curves even while she was always striking strategic poses that showed them off. She always played up the "girl of the group" role, acting more delicate than she really was, so we would be able to be "the guys." Granted, she still couldn't have kept up with us if she'd really given it her all, but she could give us a run for our money.

"Course I'm okay. We were supposed to travel the worlds together, right?"

"Right!" They cried in unison.

I looked at the room around us, and recognized it as the Green Room in the Traverse Town Hotel, " . . .Why are you guys here?"

"The island . . .wasn't the same after everything. Shutting the door didn't really do anything. Well, it cut down the number of Heartless, but it didn't restore the worlds. Not completely. There're still pieces missing."

I lay back on the pillow, "I was afraid that's what happened."

"We'll figure out a way to restore them, though. There's always a door to the light, right?"

I smiled, "Right." I held out my hand. Sora placed his over mine, and Kairi's hand soon followed. Then we burst out laughing.

* * *

I'd just finished drying off my eyes when a black-haired blur shot through the hallway, white socks sliding on the wooden floors before it reached out a hand to grab the doorjamb, "Amaya, you're awake!"

"Uhh . . .yeah . . . ." I said, trying to place this girl.

"It's Yuffie, remember me?"

My eyes widened, "The Great Ninja Yuffie?"

How could I forget? Her and her "ninja" tricks. First they were innocent enough. Then she sprained a wrist trying to use a "ninja sword"—the Buster Sword she'd stolen from Cloud. Then she broke a leg "sneak attacking"—aka jumping out of trees. And then the time she passed out from lack of air—she'd tied her "spy mask" so tight she couldn't breathe.

She giggled and pointed a thumb at her chest, "That's me!"

Then a very recognizable sight, Cloud with one arm wrapped around Aerith's waist, "Hey, kid."

Aerith looked concerned, "You doing okay? You recognize us, right? Cloud and Aerith?"

"Of course I remember you guys!"

They explained everything, Aerith taking over where Squall—Leon—left off. Filled in all the blanks, told me about the Keyblade, and what little of Riku they had gleaned from Sora and Kairi. She was just as surprised as Squall—Leon—when I told her Kairi was my sister. She hadn't recognized her, either.

"You have to remember, she was a lot younger than any of us. So were you, but you always followed us around everywhere. She played with the other kids. It wasn't exactly a face we were looking for." (A/N: Yay for stupid reasons not to recognize someone when they so obviously look exactly like their childhood self!)

I just couldn't understand how the father I'd loved so much, the father who'd taught me everything, was dead, swallowed by the Heartless. Heartless that he had willingly invited. He'd been the one to teach me magic, at least the basics of it, before Hollow Bastion disappeared. _You've got such potential. You may become a stronger mage then me._ He'd smiled. I'd felt so proud. But he hadn't used magic to travel the worlds; he'd invited the Heartless, leaving shattered worlds in his wake.

"He was lost. He became so enamored of the darkness that he forgot about the light."

Darkness without light is meaningless.

"Sora shut the door, but nothing was restored. We're right back where we started."

"Why?"

"We don't know."

Father had betrayed me. Betrayed all of us. And he'd left me all alone on the barren planet. And he'd taken a strange boy with him instead. Some stranger. Not me. I knew I should have been glad, seeing what Riku went through, being Ansem's apprentice, but that spot was meant for me. I was Father's apprentice. And Father chose some stranger over me. And yet . . .I was still Ansem's daughter. And these people trusted me, after knowing all he'd done. Count your blessings.

"Please, you guys are the only friends I have left. Don't tell the others."

"The others? Well, all that's left is Cid, and I think he'd recognize you."

"No. Don't tell Kairi. Or Sora. And please, please don't tell Riku."

Kairi shouldn't have to know that all that she went through, everything, was because of her own father. If she didn't even remember Hollow Bastion, or anything before she went to Whatitsface Island, then we shouldn't try to remind her. Forgetting was protecting her, keeping her pure and happy. Leave her that way. And Sora was the one who had battled my father to save Kairi. Would his feelings toward her change if he knew she was Ansem's daughter? What would he think of me?

What would Riku think of me? When he found out that not only was I the daughter, I was supposed to have had his place at Ansem's side? I was supposed to be the second-in-command, not him. Would he hate me? I couldn't stand that. Just thinking of that face, that smirking, confident face, turning away from me forever . . .it was like fear and pain were like water, filling me up, until there was no room for air, and making me sink down.

"Please, _please_ don't tell Riku."

* * *

I made them all promise.

Leon just shrugged, "It doesn't matter to me."

"You won't tell him, though?"

" . . .No."

"It's really up to you to tell him or not," said Cloud, walking toward the door.

"If ya really want me to keep it secret, it'll cost ya!"

Aerith looked shocked, "Yuffie!"

Yuffie twirled a toe on the ground sheepishly, "Oh, alright, I'll do it for free."

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Leon asked her.

Her eyes widened, " . . .No . . ."

"That stone?"

"What stone?"

"The one you found next to Amaya."

"Oh," she laughed, "That stone. Yeah, I must have forgotten about it. Right here in my pocket." She pulled out a purple stone and laid it on the end table.

"What's this?" I asked, curious.

"Well, if she doesn't know what it is, it couldn't be her's so I'll just—"

Leon grabbed Yuffie's wrist before she could snatch the stone back, "Like I said, we found it next to you. If it doesn't belong to you, it must belong to that Riku kid. But why don't you hold onto it, to make sure Yuffie doesn't pawn it off or something?"

"Pawn it off? How can you accuse me of such a thing?"

"Because we know you," All three answered together. Yuffie left in a huff, with Leon and Cloud not far behind.

Aerith made to leave, "Wait! _You_ won't tell him, right?"

"I won't tell him, Amaya," Aerith placed a comforting hand on my arm, a gesture I remembered from long ago, "But I think you should."

I shook my head as Aerith stood up and made to leave the room. She turned at the doorway, "Do you need anything?"

"No, I'm fine. I think I'm going to sleep some more."

She smiled, "You probably should. Teleporting that far must have been exhausting. I'll wake you up for breakfast, okay?"

"Thanks."

She had hardly shut the door when I was asleep again.

_

* * *

Are you sure?_

_Of course._

_But, my lord, she is so young. A mere child. Surely we can find someone more dependable. Stronger. Less . . .volatile._

_And who could possibly be more malleable than a child?_

_Give us some time, my lord. There is one that Hades has. It would not take much at all to make him a suitable substitute for . . ._

_Are you questioning me?_

_No, of course not. I'm just trying to make things easier on you my lord. You have been through so much already._

_The child already trusts me. She would follow me into the gates of hell if I asked. And you can already see her potential for great power._

_But it is . . .uncontrolled. You saw what she did to that world._

_Yes . . .she nearly destroyed it all on her own without any help from the Heartless. She's perfect._

_Yes, my lord._

_My Lord?_

_Yes?_

_We've encountered a small problem._

_There's a barrier around the world. The Heartless can't break through it, magic isn't getting through it—even ramming gummi ships into it doesn't break it._

_Defensive spells. How like him._

_If he would just come out and fight, we could . . ._

_He knows that. That's why he won't fight us. He is waiting._

_For what?_

_The reemergence of the other Keyblade._

_Then why don't we go to his castle and defeat him ourselves before the other Keyblade appears?_

_He isn't worth the effort._

_But the girl . . ._

_No matter. Though she would have been a great asset, we can do this without her. And we have plenty of time. We have only just begun to assemble the Princesses._

_Oh, that reminds me, there is good news, my lord. We have located the first Princess._

_Good. Report back after retrieval. _

_Yes, my lord._

* * *

I woke up, feeling very confused. It had been the man in the black cloak, talking to the woman in the black dress. Were these more of Riku's memories? Maybe more of them bled over than I thought.

I started. Riku! I hadn't been in to check on him, yet! I placed my feet on the hardwood floor and padded over to the door. It must be late, there was no light shining underneath it anymore. Still, I could at least check in him.

I slid my door open, only to realize that there was someone still awake. A dim light down on the right side of the hallway. Since I didn't know where any of the various other doors on this hallway led to, I made my way toward the light. It was Squall—Leon—and Cloud, with his back to me, sitting up at the kitchen table.

"Hey, guys," I whispered, waving a little.

Cloud waved one hand without turning around to face me. Squall just raised an eyebrow, " . . .You do realize it's three in the morning."

I looked at the clock. He was right. "I was previously unaware, but I'm awake now. What are you guys doing up?"

Leon smirked, sort of. Well, one side of his mouth twitched, anyway. "He's," he pointed at Cloud, "Afraid to go into his room because he might wake Aerith."

I started laughing, quietly of course, "Umm, why is that such a big deal?"

Cloud's voice, a low whisper because of the time, seemed to almost tremble with fear, "You haven't seen her when she wakes up. Especially at ungodly hours of the night. God save the man foolish enough to wake her," he shuddered. "That sweet, kind, Aerith . . .where does she go during the early morning?"

I covered my mouth to keep from waking everyone else up. I could just see it—Aerith, smoke blowing out her ears, threatening a poor chibi Cloud.

"What about you Squ—Leon? Why are you up?"

"The kid's in my bed."

I tilted my head to one side, "Riku?"

He nodded. "I planned on just sleeping on the couch, but Yuffie stole it. And then I had to keep this poor chicken company."

"Laugh if you want, you've never had to wake her."

"Oh, did I steal her bed?"

He waved his hand dismissively, "Don't worry about it. You needed it more than she did."

A loud snore from the sofa only proved the point, "See, she's fine where she is. So why are you up?"

"Well, I didn't know what time it was, but I was worried about Riku . . ." I trailed off, seeing the look on the two men's faces, "What?"

Cloud rearranged his face to it's normal deadpan, "Oh, nothing. It's great that you're so worried about your wittle Wiku . . ."

"What the—"

"Yeah," mused Squall, trying to look serious, "It's true love, alright."

"T-True love?" I felt my face go red. Darn it, now they're really going to think something's going on, "He's not even my boyfriend! It's just that he helped me get off that world and . . ."

"Whatever you have to tell yourself," muttered Cloud.

"Whatever," agreed Squall, going back to whatever card game they had been playing.

"Oooh! He's not! I'm not! We're not—whatever it is you think!"

"She's getting pretty riled up over 'nothing', isn't she, Leon?"

"I'd say so."

"Stop it, you two!"

"I'd definitely say we hit the nail on the head."

"Mm-hm."

"I am not!"


	8. Traverse Town II

A/N: Hey ya'll! Sorry about the wait, but I'm carrying 17 units right now and finals—and final projects—were killer. Though my audience is small, I really do try my best for them! (Puts a fist on chest, teary-eyed) My next chapter should be up soon!

A/N II: I think I got all the typos/format problems dealt with. If you see another one, let me know!

Disclaimer: If I own Kingdom Hearts, I am a purple-polka-dotted jackalope!

**Chapter 8: Traverse Town II**

I finally flopped into bed after playing a few rounds of spades with Cloud and Leon—losing horribly—hardly registering the rosy clouds in the east. I was probably out cold before my head even hit the pillow.

_. . .She's escaped._

_Who has, my lord?_

_One of the princesses of heart._

_We know their identities?_

_No. As of yet, I only know this one. She is only a child as yet, but her heart is clearly part of the key._

_Then why don't we send the heartless after her? Even they can handle one little girl, I'm sure._

_No. We must be careful. The heartless are both drawn and repulsed by the princesses. It's like two magnets—one way they will be undeniably attracted, and the other way they will be inevitably repulsed. The princesses are the most immaculate of lights, and the heartless the purest darkness. The princesses' hearts will always long for the darkness that, because of the anomaly that they are, they cannot have, and the heartless will long for the light that they cannot consume. Too long in each other's presence and they will surely destroy each other._

_. . .You are absolutely right, my lord._

_You hid it from me so well, dear._

_. . .My lord?_

_You not only had the power to escape from this world; you also knew when to leave, and where to run to. If it hadn't been for that bumpy landing, I never would have found you there. Some backwater world that hasn't even been connected yet._

_So, my lord, what is the retrieval plan?_

_Retrieval? Surely you see that we cannot reach her now?_

……

_The world is closed off._

_We can't just force our way in?_

_The door has to be opened from the inside. But there are ways that we can _convince _someone to open the door. I will handle that. Concentrate on finding the other princesses, for now._

_As you wish._

* * *

Somehow I had the feeling that I'd heard the voice before . . .it sounded so familiar. But when I tried to remember what the two in my dream had talked about, I couldn't remember. Though I usually forgot my dreams, it never ceased to frustrate me—like I was getting cheated out of some big treat by not being able to remember them. I yawned and looked at the stripes of light across the blankets. Wait. Light? Sun? How late did I sleep? 

I rolled out of bed and wandered down the hallway to the kitchen, where Aerith was doing . . .something. Ah, well.

She turned, "Ah! Amaya! I was just about to come get you."

I yawned again, "Whattaiit?"

She giggled, "What?"

"What time is it?"

"Umm, close to noon I think," she said, looking at the clock, "Actually, it's about a quarter after. That teleportation must have really worn you out."

I smiled, "Actually, I was playing spades withCloud and Leon until dawn."

"Oh my," she laughed, "I should have warned you—they're sharks. They didn't convince you to bet money, did they?"

"No. Not like I have any, anyway."

She shrugged, "That's true. Oh! Speaking of which . . .you're going to be staying with us, right?"

"Umm," I blushed, "If you don't mind . . ."

"Of course not! But we'll need to set you up a room. Since Sora and Kairi are going to staying I was going to convert the two back rooms into bedrooms anyway. Do you mind sharing with Kairi?"

"Oh, no. Sharing a room? Aerith, that will never do," I said theatrically, pretending to faint.

"Okay, then. We'll go furniture shopping later today. But in the meantime . . ." she held two pillows against the couch, "What sets off this fabric better—the olive or the sea foam?"

* * *

I kicked a small pebble off the roof, watching it clatter onto the street below, "So, what's it like?" 

"Huh?"

"The island."

Sora grimaced, ruffling a hand through his spiky brown hair, "I was afraid you would ask that."

I winced, "That bad, huh?"

He shook his head, "Not bad, I guess . . .but really creepy. Like, the beach was all intact. You know, the trees, the waterfall, the tree house, all that stuff. And my house, and Kairi's house. But other places were missing. Like, you could see the outsides of people's houses, but the insides were missing. You just stepped into nothingness. We went to your house, and there were patches of black everywhere, where we couldn't remember things," he paused, "And it was really quiet. No one—none of the people made it back. And it was weird, because you'd hear birds and not see them, and there were no fish in the water."

I tried to soak all that in, and smiled, laughing, "Sounds like some bad science-fiction book, doesn't it?"

"Hey!" he protested, "Science fiction is awesome! I don't know what you're talkin' about!"

I just rolled my eyes and punched him in the arm, "So, what's the plan, oh fearless leader?" It was weird calling him a leader, even if I was half-kidding. But half-kidding meant half-not-kidding. After all, he had been the ringleader of his little circus, and I'd never graduated above "lackey". It really was stupid.

"Well, we don't really have any leads yet, so I dunno. We can just take things as they come, I guess." He looked over curiously, "You wanna go grab a burger or something? There's this place down on East 22nd street that has awesome milkshakes."

I rolled my eyes, "Only you would be thinking about food right now."

"Why not? I'm hungry! It's healthy to think about food when you're hungry. Besides," he struck a heroic pose, "We are supposed to be traveling the worlds together. We can't do that if we're constantly worrying about things we can't do anything about."

"I guess you're right," I shrugged, and we stopped for a minute, just looking at the street. I wanted to ask him why he didn't hate me. How he could go back to being friends so easily. But that was just part of being Sora, I guess. "So," I nudged his leg with my shoe, "Are we just going to talk about food, or are we going to go get a burger?"

He jumped up and we raced across the roofs, laughing as we battled for balance.

* * *

"Merlin?" I inquired, pushing my way through the tattered old drapes at the side of the door. 

"Yes?" He looked at the . . .um . . . I guess we'll give it the benefit of the doubt and call it a door . . . "Ah! Kairi! Come on in!"

"Are you busy?" I noted the book in his hand, "I can come back later."

"Oh, no, not at all," he gestured toward the book, "Just remembering an old student of mine." He handed it over.

"King Arthur? You knew a king?"

"When he was just a lad, hoping to someday rank squire. Ah, he's been gone these many years, but he was a very good king."

I sobered, "I'm sorry."

He shook his head, smiling, "It isn't so important that you live happily ever after as it is that you live. And live he did."

I thought about that for a minute, looking around at all the things in his little house—some I could name, most I couldn't. Merlin and I had become friends the last time that I was in Traverse Town. When I had let Sora go on without me. I was so mad at myself afterward. Giving him a little trinket, like they did in the movies, instead of arguing with him, fighting my fear and going with him. I wouldn't hide again.

"So, what brings you to my humble abode?"

"The worlds weren't restored, Merlin."

The old magician sobered, "I know."

I looked over, startled, "You know? Do you know why?"

He shook his head, looking tired, "No. And while Sora has done well in many ways, there is only so long the darkness can be kept at bay."

I stomped my feet angrily, "I wish it would all just go away! Why can't everything be back like it was?"

"Because, although neither can ever truly dominate each other, they won't stop trying."

"What won't?"

"The light and the darkness. They will forever be balanced, but each one is constantly trying to gain the upper hand. That's how they keep in balance, by fighting back with equal strength. But, somewhere along the line, the light became too weak, and the darkness began to win."

My mouth gaped open, "You mean . . .it's winning?"

"It's been a very slow process, going on for many years. Though I have searched for many years, I have not been able to find where exactly the weakening began, or what caused it. It must have been something very traumatic."

"Then we'll beat it! We'll get rid of the darkness forever!"

He shook his head, "We can't do that, Kairi. A reign of endless light would be no better than a reign of endless darkness. But I think I see where our strategy may have been wrong."

"Huh?"

"We have been trying to separate ourselves from the darkness when it is an integral part of ourselves. The darkness is not so much an enemy as a reflection of ourselves."

"I don't think inviting the Heartless to tea will help."

He laughed, "Of course not! The heartless are not natural creatures. They were created when the balance was disturbed. Or at least they didn't start feeding on us until the balance was disturbed."

"So what do we do about it?"

He looked at me thoughtfully, "I'm not sure yet. Now," he called over a teapot and two cups, leaning his elbows on the table, "Tell me everything about the island."

* * *

"Are you sure, Aerith? I mean, this looks okay?" I looked nervously at the girl in the dressing room mirror. 

"Don't you like it? It looks wonderful on you!"

"Umm . . .well . . .it's just that I've never worn clothes like these before . . ."

Understatement. Aerith had just shoved me into a dressing room and ordered me to put on whatever she threw in there, and her fashion sense was beginning to scare me. First she'd tossed in a halter-top and a weird pair of—pants? Shorts?—that were short on one side and long on the other.

"Aerith, what are these?"

"They're blitz shorts!"

"Aerith? No."

Then she'd thrown in a short yellow dress with brown boots.

"Gaah! There is no way I'm showing off this much leg!"

"But it looks so cute on you!"

"Oh yeah, just curl my hair, give me a jump rope, and I'm all set. I don't think so."

Then she threw in . . .

"Aerith, this looks exactly like your dress!"

"So _that's_ why I thought it was so cute!"

This outfit was the latest thing she'd chosen to inflict on me.

Actually . . .it wasn't that bad. A dark blue top—it was a little low-cut, but a black cami underneath would fix that—and dark jeans that flared over my feet. Okay, so maybe the jeans did cling to my legs a little tighter than I would have liked, but after spending the whole day shopping for furniture, and then clothes, I was ready to take 'em. I'd get myself something baggier later, when I had money of my own to spend.

Aerith was so excited about the outfit, and a number of similar ones we had in the shopping bag, that she just tore the tags off so I could wear the clothes straight out of the store, instead of wearing what Riku would have probably called my "Queen Gwenevere Reject costume". It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the bright light outside after the inside of the store. Unfortunately, I didn't have a minute.

"Oof!"

I blinked, trying to see what had barreled into me, nearly knocking me flat on my back. "What the . . ."

"Oh, geez, I'm sorry. Pretty stupid of me to run down a crowded street, huh? I didn't even see the door open there."

"Oh, it's alright," I said, a brown-haired boy starting to emerge from the black spots my beleaguered eyes were still seeing in the bright summer sun. Then I almost gasped out loud, 'He looks like the boy from . . .'

"My name's Sora," he stuck out a hand, "What's yours?"

I took it, "Oh, you're Riku's friend, right? I'm—"

"Amaya?"

I looked over and saw Riku, now dressed in an outfit similar to the one he'd been wearing when he crash-landed on my world, "So you ditched the Queen Gwenevere costume, huh? 'Bout time."

I stuck out my tongue, "Well, excuse me for not being able to go shopping for almost a decade. Besides, you were wearing a Round Table Reject costume not so long ago."

He looked over at Sora, "Oh, dude, this is Amaya. I met her on the way over here."

'Met me on the way over here? There wouldn't have been a way over here if it weren't for me!'

I don't know if he saw me glowering or not, I never saw his eyes move in my direction, but he added, "In fact, I probably wouldn't be here if it weren't for her. I owe her big time."

'_Yeah_ you do!'

"So, Amaya, Aerith," he seemed to notice her for the first time, "You guys want to come with us for lunch?"

"No racing, this time!" Sora promised, fist on chest.

"Oh, so that's why you were running."

Sora shrugged, "Old habits die hard. We used to race all the time back home. Of course, I always won."

Riku looked at him sardonically, "Yeah, right, man, you wish."

"What are you talking about Riku? Everyone knows I could beat you in a race, hands down!"

"Wow, I guess all those losses were so traumatic you blocked them out of your memory, Sora."

"Whatever man, we all know I'm the best."

"Yeah, but the question is, at what?"

Aerith and I just laughed, "Boys," and followed them down the street.


	9. Another Small Problem

A/N: Mwa ha ha ha! I have returned! Happy Belated Christmas! Happy New Year! I'm moving reviewer shout-outs to the bottom, because I actually have more than two! My happiness is a golden poem.

Disclaimer:

Chibi Riku: Hey, you forgot about us last disclaimer!

Aries28: Why, so I did. So sorry about that, Riku.

Chibi Cloud: Hey, what about me?

Aries28: Sorry Cloud, and you, too Squall.

Chibi Squall: Whatever. (uses gunblade to cut through ropes holding Riku) I'm out of here.

Chibi Riku: Why didn't you do that before?

Chibi Squall: (Shrug)

Aries28: Wait guys, don't go! The fangirls are still—

Cloud, Squall, and Riku: Ahhhhh!

Fangirls: OhmygodohmygodohmygoditsRikuandCloudandSquall! (Proceed to try and rip the poor Chibis apart)

Aries28: Well, I don't own anything except Amaya and her own little wacko storyline. Now I gotta go save the boys . . . .

**Chapter 9: Another Small Problem**

We sat down in some cute little 50s diner, Aerith and I somehow making room for the bags underneath the table. Just when we'd all gotten situated, Riku and Aerith in the middle of the booth and Sora and I at either end, Aerith needed to go to the bathroom.

"You just went fifteen minutes ago."

"But then I drank that mocha!"

I rolled my eyes and let her up, sitting at the edge so I could get up again when she came back, and listened as the guys talked about this video game and how the X-Men could so beat Spiderman ("That's not fair, ganging up on him like that! There's only one Spiderman, there's tons of X-Men!" "Fine, then, Wolverine could beat Spiderman." "Could not!"). A waiter came by and took our orders.

"Hey, Amaya, you okay?" asked Riku, his blue, no wait, green, no wait . . .eyes looking at me in concern.

"Hm? Oh yeah, I'm fine."

"You're awful quiet. And you're sitting way out in China. I swear, I don't have cooties, though I can't promise for him," he grinned, gesturing toward Sora, who was too busy gulping down a soda to retaliate with anything besides a mock glare.

"When Aeirth comes back, she's going to want her seat . . ."

He rolled his eyes, "Come here," and grabbed my arm, pulling me into a one-armed squeeze, so close my cheek was right against his. After a second, he released me from the tight hug, but didn't remove his arm from around my shoulders.

"I'm back!" Aerith announced.

"Hang on just a minute and I'll scoot out . . ."

"Oh, don't bother, I'll just sit at the end," she gave me a knowing wink. Gah! I'm not—he's not—why do all these people think that we're—

"Heeeeyyy . . ." Riku said, "You better have been thinking about me, the way you were blushing."

I could have died from embarrassment, but he just laughed and went back to talking to Sora, every few seconds using the fingers he was resting on my shoulder to draw little circles on my arm or play with my hair.

'What does he think he's doing?'

'Come on, you know you like it.'

'Well, yeah, but that's not the point! He's being entirely too forward, and . . .'

'You like it 'cause you're too shy to do it yourself.'

'Again, not the point! I should take his arm off me right now. And . . .now. And . . .now.'

The arm stayed there. I didn't raise a hand, or shrug a shoulder. Still apparently disturbed by my silence, he gave me another squeeze—one that, too my horror, I leaned into—and looked at my questioningly, "You sure you're okay?"

I smiled, or, at least, I think I did. "Yeah. I just like to listen to you guys talk."

My own voice sounded ridiculous in my ears—it was high-pitched, the words were jumbled and jumped about like I was in an earthquake. He didn't seem to notice, but I felt his glances, and tried to participate in the conversation when I could.

Finally, the meal was over! Freedom!

"Hey, do you need help with those bags?"

I jumped in to say, "No, we're fine," but Aerith beat me to it, "Thank you so much, Riku, that would be great."

There was no doubt that Aerith saw my embarrassment and enjoyed it immensely, "Actually, Amaya's really got the heavier bags, why don't you grab some of hers?"

Riku grabbed the bags on the floor, just as I reached for them, leaving us eye-to-eye, both grabbing at the thin plastic handles.

"I can get them, really."

"So can I. Besides, you've got two in your other hand already."

"It's no big deal, weren't you hanging out with Sora?"

He waved a free hand dismissively, "I can hang out with him plenty later."

Apparently, he wasn't going to let go of the bag, so I relinquished my hold, "Well, alright, sir knight. Just this once," I tried to tease, hoping I looked half as cute as Aerith kept insisting I did.

When we stepped out of the restaurant, we couldn't see Aerith anywhere. She must have gotten ahead of us while we'd been arguing over the bags. So we decided to walk down the sun-soaked streets without her. I'd been used to much cooler weather, but I wouldn't let Aeirth buy me any shorts or short skirts. Now I regretted that decision, as well as the decision to buy a long-sleeved shirt. Riku pointed out this and that, occasionally expressing surprise at how much the city had grown since he had been here last.

I was looking at the signs on one of the shops—most were in English, but many were in languages that I couldn't even begin to read—when I suddenly heard, "Watch out!"

Riku pushed me to one side, against a brick wall, covering my body with his as a few guys on skateboards flew by, forcing most of the pedestrians into the street.

"Jerks . . ." he muttered, not seeming to notice how extremely close we were. But I noticed. Oh boy did I notice. In a way that made me want to cover my stop-light-red face and run out of there. Finally, he pushed himself away, but he grabbed my free hand with his, "Sorry about that. Are you okay?"

No, I am not okay. My heart's going about a hundred beats a second, and you had me pinned against a wall and now you're holding my hand and looking straight at me with those . . .

Now amused eyes, "Hello? Amaya? You there?"

I blinked, "What color are your eyes, Riku?"

"Huh?"

"Well, I could have sworn they were blue, but now they look green."

"Oh," he cleared some hair out of his eyes with a toss of his head, "They change color sometimes. Ya know, depending on what I'm wearing or whatever."

"They're really . . .cool." Was it okay to tell a guy he had beautiful eyes? Was beautiful too feminine?

"Thanks," he flashed a bright smile and started walking down the sidewalk again, not releasing my hand, "But now if I say anything about how beautiful yours are, I'll sound like a copy-cat."

"Hey, I'm always open to compliments," I said, making a great show of leaning my ear toward him.

"Nope, nope, nope, can't give you one if you're expecting one."

"Aw, darn it."

Before I knew it, we were at the door, stepping inside without a break in our laughter.

* * *

Leon held his gunblade out in front of him, deflecting all of Yuffie's throwing stars as she threw them from different angles, sometimes two at a time, being careful not to go for the ones meant for Cloud.

"Whoa, Squall!" Yuffie complained as one of the deflected stars came within inches of her face.

"You wanted to train with us. I'm not the only one who can hit those back at you, you know. And it's Leon."

She stuck out a tongue and started collecting the now-scattered stars, "You don't have to be so mean about it."

Leon didn't even bother to answer. She liked putting on a show of being a brat. She thought it made her cute. Yeah, cute. Like the squirrel that stole your peanuts cute. Whatever. He resisted the urge to fidget as Yuffie continued to bounce all around their training area looking for all her throwing stars.

He'd talked to Merlin earlier that day. It turns out the situation was very quickly going to hell. Merlin had said that there was still time, and still hope, but damn if Leon could see it. And it didn't help that so much of the information they needed had been lost generations ago. Even Merlin's extensive library didn't offer any concrete plans with how to deal with this.

Leon was exercising all his strength to not let any of his worries show on his face. If anyone saw him acting anything but stoic, they'd want to know all about it. Aerith would probably see right through him anyway; she always did. But what the hell was he supposed to do?

For better or for worse, he was this town's unofficial leader. Looking for a new home? Go to Leon. Looking for a job? Go to Leon. Heartless spotted in the city? Go to Leon. Really, he was surprised he ever got any sleep. He didn't know why these people wanted him to save them. He couldn't save anyone.

He'd failed so many people. Rinoa: dead. Zell: dead. Tifa: dead. Cloud: stuck under Hades's control for years. And now a new name to add to the list; Amaya; stuck alone on some barren world for the better part of a decade. So many people that he had failed.

Merlin had talked with Leon, and the two had tried to theorize why the worlds had not been restored. Something had gone wrong. Something was very wrong. In the end, Merlin had said that locking the keyholes had solved the short-term problem, and would protect the worlds from being lost completely, but it would not stop the heartless from encroaching upon the people on the worlds, or stop the heartless from moving on to new worlds.

There was supposed to be a way to really save the worlds. That was what the keyblade was for! So why the hell couldn't he figure it out? And why was it his responsibility anyway? He wasn't the keyblade master! He wasn't supposed to save the worlds! Instead, the keyblade was in the hands of a kid who didn't even know what the hell he was doing, and so Leon was stuck brainstorming with a man old enough to be his grandfather. He was done thinking; he wanted to act!

"God dammit!"

Yuffie stared with wide eyes at the star embedded in the bricks just over where her head had been. Cloud looked shock as well, and kept looking back and forth between Leon and Yuffie, then, with the tone of one who is trying very hard to remain calm, said, "What was up with that outburst?"

"Seriously . . ." Yuffie added, "Thank God you at least yelled, or else I probably wouldn't have ducked in time. That coulda hit me straight in the eye!"

Had he yelled? How much had he been saying out loud? He averted his eyes, "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

"What was that?" Cloud reiterated.

"Nothing,"Leon answered, hoisting his weapon over his shoulder, "I'm going for a walk."

For once, Yuffie didn't protest.

* * *

He blinked as he walked into the bright sun. It was always hard to tell what time it was down in that cavern, where it was dark any time of the day or night. He slogged through the water—it grossed Yuffie out, but it was just part of an abandoned fountain project, so that water was clean—frowning as he walked into the busy Business District. People looked at his weapon oddly, until recognizing who he was, at which point they dissolved into whispers, "discreet" points, and, in the case of some teenage girls, giggles. He tried to ignore it, frowning against the glare of the hot sun on the white sidewalks. He always resolved to buy sunglasses, but he either forgot to buy them, or bought them and left them at home. Besides, they were useless half the year anyway.

What _had _that been back there? He never acted out like that. It was a point of—well, not of pride, exactly, but of honor—to him that he didn't do things like that. He had a responsibility, though he'd never asked for it. He had to protect these people. Keep this place safe from the things that had ravaged their first homes. He didn't have time for temper tantrums. It's just that . . .

These people depended on him. He hadn't invited it, but now that he had it, he didn't want to let them down. And he was so scared that that was exactly what he was going to do. He couldn't promise to keep these people safe. He couldn't keep anyone safe. And he felt rather like crying. Or at least punching something really hard.

As if zeroing in on his thoughts of Hollow Bastion, Amaya came walking down the street with the white-haired kid. Although she didn't think of him as a kid, if their intertwined fingers were any indication. And though he could see her laughing and talking with the boy, he couldn't hear her. Instead he heard her small shrill scream ripping through hid ears in that last second before everything had gone black and he'd hurtled through the bone-breaking cold of the Void.

He thought he might be sick. He slipped away just as her eyes scanned the place he had been, and skimmed right past

* * *

Reviewer Responses:

Jennifer: Thanks for the heads up; I fixed it! (And I fixed how I spelled your name! Can't believe I did that! Bonks self on head) Here's Chapter 9 for ya!

Angel of Darkness and Light: Yay! A new reader! (Opens a bottle of sparkling cider to celebrate) I'm going on a favorites list? (Blushes) Thank you . . .I'm glad that you find the end of chapter seven funny! Here's chapter 9!

Riku of Darkness: I appreciate all the helpful comments! You gave me such an ego boost! I'll try my best to meet your high hopes:)

Person with really long name: Hee hee, hope you don't mind me poking a little fun at the penname! Any-whoos, I'm glad you like the couple! Most people see "OC" and go running for the hills (Not that I blame them . . .)

TenchiKai? Eeeeddoooo . . .did some of your review not come through? I see you quoted a particular line . . .was it a typo? I don't understand . . .Thank you for taking the time to review, though. I reviewed your story, but I don't know if it went through (my comp has been having troubles with the review system for some reason), so if it didn't come through, let me know and I'll go review again:)


	10. Kupo!

A/N: Sorry about the long wait . . .I just kept staring at this story goin' "WTF, mate?" It's turned out COMPLETELY different than what I originally envisioned. This was supposed to be some sort of light romance story, 8-10 chapters, tops. Well, I went and actually got myself involved in a plot (D'oh!), so I hope you guys are in for a long haul. This thing threatens to reach novel lengths. Review Responses are at the bottom!

**Disclaimer:**

Chibi Cloud: (Screams like a little girl)

A28: (Kicks some rabid fangirls in the head) Leggo my Cloud-o!

Fangirls: (Talking like "The Others") This Cloud is ours . . .this Cloud is ours . . .

A28: No, he's mine!

Disclaimer Man: Ahem.

A28: Oh, fine. He's not.

Disclaimer Man: And . . .?

A28: And neither is Squall. (Kick) Or Riku. (Kick) Or Anything from Kingdom Hearts. (Kick)

Disclaimer Man: But you do own Amaya.

A28: Yes.

Disclaimer Man: Alright, then sign here, here, here, and initial here.

A28: Ug. . .(Lets Cloud go. Cloud goes flying right into a group of fangirls) I hate all this paper work . . .

**Chapter 10**

"Ug!" We groaned, putting the dresser in place. "That's it, Aerith," I plopped down on my new bed, "I'm not moving it again! Just be happy with it where it is, or get Cloud to do it!"

Aerith and I had moved all the new furniture into the back bedrooms, in several configurations by this point, so that Yuffie and Squ—Leon could have their rooms back. Everyone, including Riku, had made themselves scarce the second they'd heard about moving furniture. Even Kairi had abandoned us ("Yeah, that thing I have to go to . . .it's starting soon . . .Bye!").

Aerith laughed, "Okay, okay. We'll just get your things in here." She disappeared, returning with my bags, and started folding their contents into the dresser, "We need to take you shopping again later! You only got a couple of outfits!"

"Can it at least wait until tomorrow?" I pleaded, "I'm exhausted!"

"If you really want to. Can you go check Yuffie's room? If you leave something in there, it probably won't be there tomorrow."

I reluctantly pulled myself off the bed and trudged down the hallway. The second I opened the door, my eyes flew to it. The stone, shining in the bright light form the window, deep blues and burgundies hiding it its depths. That was mine. I picked it up and studied it. Such a pretty little thing, no bigger than a marble. Probably totally worthless. I tried to remember when I'd gotten it, but carelessly tossed the idea aside. Who cares when I got it? It's mine, right?

I shook my head. Where had _that_ come from? It wasn't like me to be so possessive, and certainly not like me to be so inattentive to detail. I frowned; even when I really thought about it, I could not remember getting this stone. Had I always had it? No, I was sure I'd gotten it recently. But I'd already had it when I got here, right? So when . . .?

I was still absently playing with the stone, feeling it warm in my hands, when I walked back to my new room.

"Oh, what a pretty stone!" I grasped it self-consciously, but forced my hand to relax and open as Aerith held out hers, "May I see it?" I reluctantly handed it over, still criticizing my behavior; why was I being so selfish? It was just a little rock! Why did I feel so strangely about it?

"Have you ever thought of getting it set? It's a little big for a ring," she examined it, "But it would be lovely on a necklace, or maybe a bracelet." She held it up to the light, "And al those other colors in it! I wonder what kind of stone it is?" She put it back in my waiting hand, "Good thing you got this away from Yuffie—this time tomorrow it would have been in a pawn shop."

"Really?" I was shocked; would Yuffie _really_ have sold it for a few measly munny?

Aerith smiled wryly, "She probably would have felt guilty about it afterward, but yes. She seems to have developed an unfortunate habit of stealing. I honestly don't know where she got it from. We—Leon and I—tried to keep her out of trouble, but . . ."

"She just attracts it?"

"She goes hunting for it, or else creates it herself." Quipped Cloud, walking in and planting a kiss on Aerith's cheek, "You did a great job on finding furniture."

"You think so? I'm still trying to figure out how to paint the walls, but I thought I'd wait for Kairi, so we could see what colors she likes."

"Good idea. Have either of you guys seen Leon?"

"No," I answered, "Why?"

"Well, we were all training in the cave under Merlin's house—Leon and Yuffie and me—when he suddenly blew up and walked out."

Aerith raised her eyebrows, "_Leon_ blew up?"

Cloud shrugged, "Well, he did the Leon version of blowing up. He hit one of Yuffie's ninja stars so hard it got stuck in the wall—it's still there—said he was going for a walk, and took off. I thought he would have come home by now."

"No . . ." Aerith's forehead creased with worry, "I hope he's okay . . ."

"I wonder what could have gotten Leon so angry . . ." I thought aloud.

"I'm not sure. You know how Leon is; he keeps to himself." But a small flash of worry crossed Cloud's face.

"Hmm," Aerith hummed, sending a clear "we'll-talk-later" look to Cloud, just as the front door opened, "Hey, anybody home?"

"We're in the back," Aerith called absently, smoothing the wrinkles out of one of the new bedspreads.

Kairi walked in with Sora in tow, "Where's Riku?"

I shrugged, "The lazy bum took off as soon as he found out that we were moving furniture."

Kairi rolled her eyes, "Sounds like another lazy bum I know." She bumped her shoulder against Sora, a smile sliding up one side of her mouth.

"Hey . . ." Sora pouted.

"Anyway," Kairi continued, "Merlin wants to talk to him, ASAP."

The front door opened again, "Riku?" I called.

"No." Came the short reply, leisurely steps coming down the hallway.

"Oh, hi, Leon." Did he look peeved? Did I do something to make him angry? I hoped not. "Are you okay?"

He looked at me coldly, "Why wouldn't I be?"

Yikes! Who spit in his spaghetti? "No reason that I know of; you just don't seem very happy."

"I'm fine."

"Okay . . ."

"Leon," asked Sora, "Have you seen Riku? Merlin wants to talk to him."

He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed against his chest, "No."

"Well, I guess I'll go out and look for him, then. I needed to go out anyway."

"Didn't you just come back?" Asked Sora, confused.

I smiled, "Yeah, but I forgot that I wanted to get this," I pulled out the stone, "set."

"Ooh!" Kairi exclaimed, leaning over to look, "How pretty! Oh! There's this shop, upstairs from Cid's, I bet they could set it for you! They do stuff while you wait, don't they?"

Sora rolled his eyes, "Their accessories are different, Kairi."

"Well, it shouldn't make a difference whether it's magic or not! It's the same idea, right?"

"I guess."

"Right!" She turned back to look at me, "Right above Cid's."

"Alright, I'll see you guys later." Yay, off to Cid's. Wherever that was . . .

* * *

Everyone just sort of stayed in that back room. The girls kept trying to start up a conversation, and they tried everything from color schemes to blitzball, but they all shriveled and died, gasping for breath. The silence didn't bother me, but the fact that Aerith and Cloud were obviously tip-toeing around me, and the kids had caught on enough to do it too, was really irritating. It wasn't like it was some big deal. I'm allowed to get mad every once in a while, right? Right? They don't need to know everything—it's none of their business!

" . . .I'm going out."

"Oh, okay, Leon," Aerith answered, startled, "Where are you going?"

" . . .Out." I turned around and walked back out of the house and into the sunlight.

The bright light seared through my eyes, making me all too aware of a headache I didn't know I had, "Damn, I need to buy some sunglasses," I mumbled, making my way down the hot street.

* * *

I'd actually been able to find Cid's, luckily enough the huge sign stood out pretty well. I knocked on the door on the second floor uncertainly, "Umm . . .is this the accessory shop?"

"Kupo-upo!" Something inside squeaked, and the door fell open, "You need anything customized? We're the kupos to do it, kupo!"

I stood in shock. The fluff-ball spoke! To be more precise, a short fluff-ball with what looked like a cat toy on its head.

"Um . . .forgive me for being rude but . . .well, I've never seen anything like you before . . ." I wanted to touch the red ball hanging over its head, but that would probably be some sort of offense punishable by death, so I kept my hand away.

It shrugged and smiled, I think, before turning back to several other fluff-balls in the room behind it, "Newbie, kupo."

It gestured for me to follow as it walked back into the room, "We're moogles, kupo. And before you ask—" it gestured to its head, "This is my pom-pom. Yes, it's real; yes, it's attached; no you may not touch it!"

I just nodded, and the little moogle smiled again, "What did you need, kupo?"

"Umm, well, I have this stone . . .I was wondering if I could get it set in something." I took the small thing out of my pocket.

It grabbed the stone out of my hand with a shockingly soft paw, examining it, "Shouldn't be a problem, kupo. Let's look at what we got. By the way, kupo," he (I decided it looked masculine) held out the empty paw, "I'm Mog. (1)"

"Thanks, Mog," I answered, shaking his paw, then following him to a box in the back of the room. He pulled out pawful after pawful of empty rings and chains, their empty sockets staring, empty hooks grasping for a gem to call their own.

"I thought it would be a bit big for a ring . . .do you think we could put it in a necklace?"

Mog nodded, "Definitely doable, kupo! Silver or gold, kupo?"

"Silver," I answered, watching the stone gleaming in his grasp as he held it up to various sizes of sockets, looking for one that would fit, "Size 8 . . ." he mumbled to himself, opening a drawer labeled with a piece of masking tape and a hastily-scrawled 8, "Pick whatever you'd like, kupo!"

Wow. I had been planning on something simple, but they had so many different ones to choose from! There was one that made it look like the stone was a pearl inside an open-mouthed oyster, one that looked like a teardrop, the gem shimmering in the center, ones that looked like suns and moons and stars. Countless ones shaped like animals, some that I knew and others that I could only guess were mythological.

A calloused hand reached over my shoulder and pointed at one, a little fairy that would hold the jewel in her arms, "You should take that one."

I turned around, startled to see Leon behind me, "Leon? You scared me."

He continued, not seeming to take any note of my comment, "All the detail on it will make up for the fact that the stone isn't cut."

"Umm, yeah. I thought it was really pretty, too, but I don't have enough money . . ."

He picked the trinket up, "Do you really like it?" I looked at him, confused. He almost smiled, "You act almost like you're scared of me. I don't want you to think you _have_ to agree with me."

Scared of you? No. It's just that you are Mr. Gorgeous and I seem to have taken leave of my senses for a moment. I mean, this guy was my first crush, you know? "N-no, I'm not scared of you. You just startled me just now, is all. It is very pretty Leon, but please put it back. I can't afford it."

"Hey, Mog," he called. His voice is so odd. Odd-good, not odd-bad. He doesn't need to speak loudly—it just seems like everyone else suddenly becomes quieter when he talks, or his voice just carries over them or something. Effortlessly. "We'll take this one."

"Oh, Leon, kupo! I didn't know this girl was a friend of yours, kupo!" Friend of Leon's? Did he consider me a friend?

"Yeah," I had to control the little bubble of happiness filling my chest. Lord above, I am still such a little girl, to get so happy over him just calling me his friend. "We come from the same world. She only recently found us." The look that came over his face at the last statement almost punctured my little happy bubble. Was I the reason he had been upset earlier?

Mog smiled, "It's good to hear happy stories, kupo! You don't hear them often enough, kupo." He took the little fairy in his paw, "That'll be 2000 munny, kupo, and the necklace will be ready in an hour or two, kupo!"

Leon ignored my sound of protest as he handed over the munny, "Okay, we'll be back then." He grabbed my hand and started walking back out the door.

"Have a nice day, kupo!"

"Umm, you too!" I called over my shoulder as we went back into the bright sunlight. I saw Leon wince against the glare, "You should get some sunglasses, Leon."

* * *

(1) I'm just using this as a generic moogle name. It is not meant to be any one particular Final Fantasy Moogle, though I know the name "Mog" shows up in VII, VIII, and IX.

**Review Responses**

Riku of Darkness: Your advice is noted. I hadn't even really meant to even put the love triangle in there—it just sort of happened. And now that it's in there, I can' t seem to get it out. I promise, though, Amaya is far from perfect. Oh! And thanks for catching my boo-boo . . .I haven't played Kingdom Hearts in a while, so I kinda forgot that Selphie was on Destiny Islands! (Pouts) I have to go change it to someone else now . . .I really like Selphie . . .(Brightens back up) Thank you for all your reviews!

Jen: Thanks for the review, Jen! I can see where it might be confusing, especially to someone who hasn't played the game. When I get around to revisions (chibis all laugh at the thought of Aries getting around to doing anything) I'll make sure to fix it.

Ice Dagger: I finally updated! Now you! Go work on your fic!

Tenchi Kai: I'm glad you think the Amaya/Riku stuff is cute . . .I hope you don't kill me for not having any in this chapter. (Begs for forgiveness)

Angel of Darkness and Light: Hee hee, I'm glad you like it. Oo Don't tease Squ—_Leon_ too much. He looks kinda dangerous.

Doomboy2000: Does your name have anything to do with Invader Zim? (Gir: Sing the Doom Song!) Anyway, I'm really working on getting the plot moving—it's just that my original idea for the story and what it has transformed into are drastically different, so I'm trying to cover a lot of ground, now. I promise, there is a point to all this!


	11. Dark Stone

Disclaimer: All the chibis are back in Aries' house, covered with scratches and gasping for breath

A28: I told you not to go out there.

Chibi Riku: Fine, we'll stay. But only until the fangirls leave.

Chibi Cloud: And only to remind you to say that you don't own us.

Chibi Squall: If that isn't proof that fate is cruel, I don't know what is.

A28: Yes, Squall, it truly is a cruel world where I don't own you guys. But I don't.

Chibi Riku: I don't think that's what he meant . . .

**Chapter 11**

"Have a nice day, kupo!"

"Umm, you too!" She called back as we went back into the bright sunlight. Ug. Sunlight. I squinted, trying to make out the shapes around me, and saw Amaya looking up at me with concern, "You should get some sunglasses, Leon."

I grunted noncommittally, but started walking over to the Sunglass Hut.

A girl with dark hair and warm brown eyes greeted us. "Hello Mr. Leon! Looking for anything special today?"

" . . .What do you have?"

"Well, let's see, for your face shape . . ." she tucked her black hair behind her ear impatiently as she scoured the rows and rows of frames, "Here, try these on!"

I looked in the little mirror. Hey, not bad. She must have a good eye for this stuff. Well, she _does_ work here. " . . .Sure, these work."

"Yay!" Her brown eyes glowed as I handed her the glasses and got my wallet out of my pocket. She must have seen my raised eyebrow, because she suddenly flushed and smiled sheepishly, "Sorry. I'm just excited that you liked the ones I picked out."

"It's okay," I looked at her nametag, "Samantha."

She giggled, handing him the glasses, "Come by and see me again, okay?"

I just took the bag and walked out. That smile—how did someone else have that smile?

"Did you . . .know her, Leon?"

I looked down at the girl by my side, "I don't think so. I meet a lot of people, though, so maybe." I looked around the square, "How do you want to kill the next hour?"

"Hm? Umm . . .I don't know . . ." she looked and saw a sign across the way, "Ooh! Look! Ice cream! I haven't had ice cream in so long! Let's get some!" She gave me a thumbs-up sign, "My treat?"

Why not? It was sweltering out here. "Sure."

"Ice cream!" She almost ran over to the little shop, me trailing behind. Wow, and here I was thinking she wasn't such a kid. "Ooh! Ooh! Should I have chocolate chip? Or mint? Or maybe one of the fruit kinds? It's been so long since I've had ice cream!" She bounced all over the store, generally making a nuisance of herself, and taking a good fifteen minutes just to decide what she wanted—a triple scoop strawberry sundae. She sat down in the chair opposite me, where I had been sitting, eating my ice cream while she'd been deciding. She giggled into the first bite.

"You have no idea how much I've missed ice cream!" She exclaimed around a mouth full of the sugary mess.

"I think I have an idea, now."

She gulped self-consciously, "Oops, sorry. It's just that's it's been almost a decade since I had ice cream. And I _love_ ice cream!"

"I can see that."

"Oh, you!" She stuck out her tongue, red from the strawberry syrup.

I inwardly smiled; she really was the same little kid who'd followed us around back home.

We sat in a comfortable silence, just eating ice cream, watching the people walking by. "I think it's about time to go check up on that necklace of yours."

"Hm? Okay." She scraped the last bit of vanilla ice cream out of the bottom of the bowl and followed me out the door, thanking the people behind the counter one last time. Bright sunlight? Hah. If I'd been about, oh, fifteen years younger, I would have laughed at it. I've got my sunglasses now. Yeah, I'm cool. Except I'm twenty-six, not eleven. So I just put on my glasses and mentally mocked the sun as we walked back to the accessory place.

"Kupo-upo! Here's your necklace!" Mog went to go get the necklace, but stopped, and held it up, "Do you have any more stones like this one?"

Amaya shook her head, "No. I just came across this one by chance."

"Hmm, pity, kupo," he handed the necklace over, "It's such an interesting material, kupo!"

"Well, if we find any more, we'll let you know!" She smiled brightly, holding the necklace in her hand.

She zoned out for a minute, just staring into space, her hands mindlessly working the latch.

"Need some help with that?"

My voice seemed to snap her out of it, and she smiled brightly, "If you don't mind," she handed the necklace over and lifted up her hair. I carefully put it around her neck, fastening the latch. The little charm had gotten stuck at the back, so I moved to put it back in front. The second I touched that jewel, I felt an odd jolt go through me, though not an entirely unpleasant one. It was like feeling a whisper. I moved the charm back around to the front.

She bounced over to a little mirror the moogles had put on a counter, "Oh! It's beautiful! Thank you so much, Leon, I owe you one!"

I shook my head, still feeling the odd whispers, "It's nothing," I said, though I wasn't sure whether it was to her or to myself.

* * *

We'd decided to go home after Leon bought me my necklace. He's so quiet. He always was, but it seemed like a different quiet now. It really set me on edge. Especially the way he kept looking back at me like I was some kind of psycho.

"Umm, Leon? Is there ice cream on my face or something?"

"No."

"Then why do you keep looking at me?"

" . . ."

Great, thanks for being so informative. After a few more glances, I realized he wasn't looking at me—he was looking at the necklace.

"Is something wrong, Leon?" I asked, holding up the charm so he could see what I was talking about.

"Where did you get that thing?"

"Well, you just bought it for me," I said, feeling in a smart-alecky mood for some reason. I guess I just wanted to get some kind of rise out of him. I wanted to smack myself. Great way to get him to like you, Amaya, be sarcastic with him.

No reaction, "That's not what I mean. Where did you get the stone?"

I felt a moment of confusion. When _had_ I gotten it? "I . . .it's weird, you know? I've asked myself that and . . .I don't remember."

"You don't remember?" It sounded more like a statement than a question, but I could hear the disbelief.

"I know, it's strange. I don't think I had it back in Hollow Bastion, or on that other world I was on, but I had it when I got here. It's not like we made any pit stops on the way . . ." A light went off in my head, "Wait! I can ask Riku!"

" . . .Riku?"

"He would know if I got it before or after I met him for sure!"

"Hm. Maybe."

We opened the door to get back home, "We're home!" A smattering of heys, howyadoins, and hellos came back, "Has anyone seen Riku?"

"Actually," Kairi answered, "He just went to Merlin's."

"Oh."

Aerith looked up, "Why don't you go to Merlin's house, too?"

I turned back to Aerith, "Huh?"

"He's a nice old guy. And besides, maybe he'll be able to tell you something about why it took so long for you to get off that world, and why you were there in the first place."

"Oh, okay. Umm . . .where _is_ his house?"

Aerith looked at the ceiling, clearly following the route in her head, "You know where that little shrine is?"

I nodded, "Uh-huh."

"To the left of that, there'll be a short alley-way with one door at the end. The door will have a picture of a flame on it. Go in there, and walk on the stepping stones to get to the house."

"Got it. Shrine. Alleyway. Door with flames. Stepping stones. House."

"Right on." She gave me a thumbs up, and I sighed as I walked out that front door for what seemed the bazillionth time that day.

* * *

"So, you are the Riku I've heard so much about."

"Depends on what you heard," I said, weakly trying to make a joke. He looked like a harmless enough man, using his power for stupid things like flying teapots, but he was probably a lot sharper than he looked. He had to be—Ansem himself didn't mess with this guy. That's the only reason he hadn't pushed harder for the acquisition of Traverse Town. It would have been a huge accomplishment to conquer this place; it was the natural resting place for those whose worlds had been destroyed. If all those souls went to a world swallowed in darkness—

"Oh, not too much. Only that you are the friend of Sora and Kairi, but that circumstances led you to fight against each other."

"Circumstances."

His whiskers shifted in a smile, "I would hold on to them, were I you. They are good friends, that would be able to see through those circumstances to the real you."

I shook my head, "They don't see the real me. They never have. I'm capable of things they would never dream of doing," I wanted to punch a hole right through the wall, but that's not exactly a good way to make an impression. 'Not that he seems to mind holes in the walls' I thought, looking at the 'door', "Neither of them would have turned to darkness, no matter how bad they wanted something."

He sobered, "You are right. They wouldn't. But," he continued, "They would sell their souls to the light."

"Isn't that what everyone wants? A world of pure light?"

Merlin shook his head, "Both sides must exist together. We only know what light is by its contrast with shadow. Without that shadow, we cannot exist."

Theses arguments . . .they sounded too much like Ansem's. _The darkness is a natural part of us. What do we gain from hiding from it, hiding it from ourselves? Nothing. Accept the darkness within yourself, Riku._

His voice grew firm, "I am _not_ trying to harm you, Riku. Nor am I trying to take you back to darkness. I am trying to tell you that neither a world of light nor darkness can exist alone. They must exist together. We must—"

"Accept the light _and_ darkness within ourselves."

We both looked up, startled to see Amaya, standing there in the doorway. "It was in that old book in the library. 'If you can find in within yourself to accept both your own light and your own darkness, the door will open.' That's what you're saying right?"

Merlin nodded sagely, "Exactly."

"Open the door? That's what Ansem was trying to do! You guys are nuts! Absolutely nuts!" I pointed at both of them, "That's why I closed the door again. It would have destroyed everyone to open it! Do you have," my voice cracked, "Any _idea_ what's in there?"

"You're right, Riku. Opening it the way Ansem was planning to would have destroyed us all, because he was forcing it open. The door is not meant to be forced; rather, when it senses that the balance is to be restored, it will open of its own accord. That's why—" he stopped short, "My dear, what is that around your neck?"

She clutched at it self-consciously, "It's—it's nothing. I found it, and I thought it was pretty, so I had it set. It's probably not even worth anything."

"Let me see it."

She walked forward, but strangely, like she was resisting each step. She held up the stone for him to see. He took the little charm in one of his old wrinkled hands, "Do you know what this is?" He asked quietly. She shook her head mutely. He turned the jewel over in his hands, "It's such an odd stone. Like a summon stone but—"

"But . . .?"

"There's something wrong. The energy coming from it is . . .different. You must have felt it." It was and wasn't a question. It was clear that he thought there was no way she couldn't have felt whatever this energy was, and that he was just being polite, asking for clarification. Or maybe he was waiting to see if she would deny it.

"I . . .I have felt something, but . . .I don't know what it is. It makes me think . . .things."

"What kind of things?" He asked, quickly, dropping the stone back to its place.

"I . . .I get possessive over it. And, well, I don't know. Sometimes I think . . .this is going to sound crazy."

"Nobody thinks you're crazy," Merlin soothed, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"It's like . . .a whisper. I can't quite catch the words. But there's someone whispering."

He nodded, "That feeling isn't uncommon with a summon gem. But it doesn't normally feel like this. Most summons," he turned to include me in this explanation, "Are _gentle_ protectors. They were too pure to fall when their worlds did, and so they became spirits, a jewel their only material bulk, that protect those still living. This one . . .it feels dark. Brooding. Angry. With feelings like those, how did it become a summon?"

He didn't seem to expect an answer, which was good, since I didn't have any.

"Who could it be?" He wondered. Amaya seemed to stare into space. Then she went very pale. Then she fell on her knees and started crying.

I ran over and knelt next to her on the floor, "Amaya! Amaya, what's wrong?"

She was just sobbing, shoulders racked with it. I didn't know what to do. I've never been good with crying girls. "How horrible, how horrible," she just kept muttering over and over.

"What's horrible?"

She looked at me with wide eyes, "I didn't mean to do it! I swear I didn't mean to!"

Okay, now I was scared. I had started to hug her at some point, and I guess it was making it better, since she was hugging me back, sobbing into my shoulder. "I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to!"

"Didn't mean to what?"

But she just kept shaking her head, crying, "I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to!"

**

* * *

Review Responses**

Riku of Darkness: Whoa! That must have been the fastest update-to-review time in history! I think I got whiplash . . .hee hee, sorry for leaving you hanging, but I had to find someplace to cut the chapter off. And I didn't think you were ragging on me—you were adding constructive criticisms. Like my bio says, as long as it is a real, articulated concern, I don't mind.

Tenchi Kai: Well, now you tell me you want Amaya/Leon! Make up your mind! j/k, seriously, I'm trying to get some real plot going here. The fluff will come, I promise! (I'm guilty of always bugging my favorite authors for fluff)

Angel of Darkness and Light: Glad you liked it! Here's the new chappie!

Eyes: Out of curiosity, how did you choose your name? Ish very long, yesh. But not nearly as long as my time between updates! (Smiles sheepishly) Here's the next chapter!

Jen: Hee hee, yeah, that happens when you play Final Fantasy VIII too much. FFVIII was my first RPG, so I keep wanting to call him Squall, too. It's a way cooler name than Leon (no offense to anyone named Leon)


	12. Dark Summon

A/N: There are way too many reasons as to my lack of updates to list them all here. Let it be known, however, that I am glad to be back. I don't know how quickly I'll be able to update as I'm rather busy, having promised myself to more responsibilities than I realized. Thank you for your patience, review responses are at the end of the chapter.

Disclaimer

Chibi Riku: . . . .

Chibi Cloud: . . . .

Chibi Squall: . . . .

Aries: They're on a silent strike, so I have to say the disclaimer myself. I don't own Kingdom Hearts or any of the fantabulous characters herein. I do own Amaya and her own psychotic delusions of adequacy.

**Chapter 12: The Dark Summon**

People were screaming everywhere. Some were screaming people's names. Most were just screaming. They kept running past, no one noticing one more little girl in the crowd of panicking people. Where was Papa? How had the monsters gotten in to the main castle? Where was Papa? The stones were cold on her bare feet. Why wasn't anyone helping her? Why wouldn't anyone stop? Where were they all coming from? Where was Papa?

Through a gap in the crowd, she saw Squall up ahead, back to back with Rinoa, trying to fight off the monsters that seemed to spring from the shadows on the floor. Big people. Big people would help her. "Squall!"

He looked up, his face covered in sweat, and saw her standing there. A little girl, barefoot, in a thin cotton nightgown. She called out his name again, tears running down a sob-reddened face. Then the pressure on his back disappeared. He turned just in time to see her fall, and vanish, just before she hit the ground. "Rinoa!"

She stopped. There was terror on that face, and anger, and grief. He was crying as much as she was. He was just as scared. The big people wouldn't help her. Then she was really afraid. He had to snap out of it. He had to tell her it was all right. He had to help her! "Squall!"

He looked up from the spot where Rinoa had faded away. "Amaya."

He started pushing through the people to get to her. And then her vision was obstructed. Something huge loomed over her, it's giant horn sparking as it lowered it. She screamed. _Not me not me not me don't hurt me don't hurt me . . ._

And then it was cold. Bone-cracking cold. The screams were gone. The people were gone. The floor was gone. There was only a whisper all around her. **_You're just like them. Selfish. Just like them._**

_I'm not. I. . ._

_**Yes you are.**_

Then there was grass beneath her knees. It wasn't like falling; there just wasn't ground and then there was. She opened her eyes and saw the land unfolding in all directions. Green hills, and a stand of trees, and, fairly close by, a castle. Safe. She was safe. For now. But what if those things came here? She had to make sure she was safe. Make sure she would be safe forever.

_No._

_**Do you remember now?**_

_Don't do it! Don't!_

_**You can't stop her.**_

She fell forward on her hands, splaying them out on the ground A small circle of light began to grow between her outstretched hands.

_No. Nonononononono._

_**It's too late. Watch the destruction you have wrought.**_

The circle grew bigger, until it encompassed her body, then billowed out, creating half a sphere. Tears ran down the little girl's face, but she kept pushing the circle bigger. Not enough energy inside. Had to pull it from outside. The grass began to wither and brown as she pushed the circle even further.

"How horrible."

A voice far away tried to ask me what was horrible. Couldn't they see? Couldn't they see what she was doing? What she was about to do?

The circle pushed out further, until it encompassed the hill. The ground was completely scorched now, with no trace of anything but ash and dust. The sphere pushed out further. The trees lost their leaves, before the braches themselves crumbled, leaving only the toughest limbs, burnt and twisted. And still she kept pushing the sphere larger and larger until it circled the entire world.

**_Life killer. Life taker._**

She sobbed and curled in on herself. Safe. She was safe.

_**Life taker. Killer. Killer. Killer. Killer.**_

"I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to!"

**_Liar. You didn't care. You didn't care about anything but yourself. Killer. Killer. Killer. Killer._**

"I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to!"

**_Did you even think to look for your sister? No. You didn't care what happened to anyone else as long as you were safe. So you killed that planet. That whole world._**

Then the vision of the smoldering planet was gone, replaced by the darkness. But in the distance, there was a ball of blue light. Blue and green and brown and white, swirling and turning.

_What . . .?_

**_My world._**

The voice was different now. It wasn't angry. It was nostalgic. Proud. **_My world._**

We swooped down lower. I felt like I was being cradled in a warm embrace, but I couldn't turn to see his face. All I could sense was the protectiveness and gentleness as he showed me his world. We flew over endless fields, where animals that I had never seen ran in herds and alone. We skimmed over vast oceans, and playful fish surfaced and chattered at us, jumping, rainbows catching each drop of water on their smooth skins. He showed me jungles, where the infinitesimally small dwelt beside the impossibly gargantuan. And deserts, where lizards sunned themselves on the rocks, and forests, with rainbow-colored leaves, and mountains, with snow dusting their peaks.

_It's beautiful._

_**My world.**_ The anger returned. **_They didn't care about all this._**

_No. No, not this world, too._

**_All they cared about was themselves._**

A city came into view in the distance. We flew through the solid wood gates as though they were nothing but air. A voice was ringing out somewhere, its words far too faint to hear.

**_There they are._**

We flew through what seemed to be endless twisting side streets, surrounded by tall sandstone walls, until we reached a plaza crammed full of people, surrounding a hastily made stage.

"Hail, King Luminox!" They cried, as a dark-haired man smiled on the stage. He turned and looked over their heads, straight into her eyes. She froze.

_He's . . .beautiful._

**_Don't let his beauty fool you._**

"My people!" He called out over the crowd. She gasped. _His voice . . ._

It was like someone had taken gold and crafted it into a sound. It was mesmerizing. Forget beautiful. He's beyond beautiful. Someone like this shouldn't exist. It's like . . .

**_Staring at the sun._**

He smiled, and it was like the golden afternoon sun dancing on the water, "We have been victorious! We have driven the darkness from our hearts, and soon, we will drive it from our planet!"

Cheers rang out, and if it weren't for the tension coming off her guardian, she would have cheered, too. He was gold. He was light. He was good. All things light would be good. She just had to listen to him, listen to light, and all would be well and all pain would be gone . . .

"We have cleansed the world! The only thing remaining is one small shadow that hides under the rocks of our own city."

_Not here?_ She found herself questioning. _Where is it? I'll destroy it for you. Just tell me where!_

_**His voice is . . .mesmerizing, isn't it?**_

She tried to turn to her guardian, but found that she still could not move to see him. Her cheeks burned with shame. Had she forgotten where such talk lead so quickly? Had she forgotten about the balance? With just the sound of one man's voice?

_**Many before you fell to him in such a way. They follow him now, to their destruction, and the destruction of this world.**_

_Where are you?_

She almost felt a bitter smile, _**You'll see me soon enough.**_

"So let us drive out the non-believer who still lurks on our very streets! Let us tear down the false idols of the shadow-worshipers! They call it nature; what tree praises the darkness, when it is the sun that gives it life?"

The crowd's cheering rose to a fevered pitch, "Will you follow me, to our kingdom of everlasting light?"

"Hail, King Luminox!"

"Then let us root out the last of the evil!"

The people cheered and started running through the streets, off toward a district in the west of the city. Her guardian had picked her up and begun his flight again, keeping just abreast of the crowd running through the streets. They smashed through the wooden gates and began swarming over a beautiful, but clearly deserted, square. Everywhere on the walls were images, carved or painted, of men and women and children, and trees, and animals. A fountain stood in the center of the square. The spout of the fountain was shaped like a tree, and two children and some small, tailed creatures laughed and climbed together. Around the outside of the fountain, grazing animals and predators were carved in relief.

One of the men stood up from the crowd and swung a hammer at the fountain, breaking off one of the trees smaller branches. This started a frenzy, as everyone in the crowd starting tearing apart whatever parts of the sculptures and frescos they could reach.

She stared in shock, _Why?_

**_Because they fear it. The world is wonderful because it is complex, but they want everything to be simple, understandable, controllable. And so they fear and hate and destroy._**

Water started to flood through the square as someone hit the fountain's main pipe. A piece of one of the children's faces landed near her, water sliding down its cheek.

"Where are you hiding?" Screamed the beautiful king. Even now, in his terrible rage, with his hair flying lose across his burning eyes, he was beautiful. Gold shining in the sun.

**_He is not hiding, he is waiting for you._**

They took flight, so fast that she only saw blurred shapes as they traveled through the streets, into a small chapel, built right next to the wall of the city. There was a man there, his back to them, kneeling on the floor, his head bent in fervent prayer. She could not seem to hear his words, or maybe he was speaking a different language. Her guardian seemed to sense her confusion.

**_He prays that they will see the truth. That they will see wisdom and return to the ways of balance. And also . . .he prays for himself. He is afraid to die._** He said this last part as if it were shameful to him.

And then she saw what it was that the man prayed before. It was a painting on the wall, but a most strange one. It was a face, of that she was certain, but first it seemed to be a man with black and orange stripes, and then a woman with hair like willow leaves, and then a creature with dark, soft eyes, and then something she could not name, for it was all these things and none of these things.

The noise outside grew louder as the mob grew closer. The man's head bent lower, the bottom of his robe shifted and one sandaled foot showed itself.

_**His prayers will not save him, nor his world.**_

She heard footsteps in the atrium that she only just realized was behind them. He hadn't even bothered to shut the door.

"So, here you are, still praying to your darkness."

The man on the floor raised his head, but did not turn, "You must stop this madness, Soren. The pure light you are chasing will destroy us all. It will burn you to nothing. We were friends once; listen to me now."

The king shook his head, "It is only because we were friends that I have not executed you as I have the other heathens. Why do you insist on keeping to the old ways? They never brought us the enlightenment we seek. They never will."

"Enlightenment? Even now you speak of understanding as being something that only the light holds. What happened to your vow to uphold the balance? The vow that has been honored by all the kings for centuries?"

"Those vows never brought us anything," Soren retorted angrily.

The man rose from the floor and turned toward Soren, "Never brought us anything! What do you call decades of peace for our people, living in harmony with the land that gives us life? We always had all we needed; why was there a need for more?"

"Keeping to your 'balance' leaves us only as a small piece of this—do I not have the right to rule my own destiny?"

The man shook his head, "Still you do not understand, Soren."

A few more men ran into the chapel and saw the two men's confrontations, "Ah! My king! You have found the last of the infidels! Shall we kill him now, or would you prefer to arrange an execution?"

More people came in from outside, until it seemed all his followers were crowded into the small building. For a moment, it looked as though tears stood in the king's eyes, but they soon became cold. Cold. Gold is not warm; it's cold.

"He is an unrepentant sinner, and so must die to make way for the light."

The only sign the condemned man gave of his fear was one deep sigh, before he knelt on the ground, head bent, hands clasped behind his back.

"Will you not," the king made one last appeal, "Turn to the light? Even now, it is not too late to turn toward heaven."

"I pledge myself," his voice shook just a little, "To spend all that remains of my existence fighting your kingdom of light. If that is heaven, I choose hell!"

The king's face worked with both grief and rage. He silently signaled one of his swordsmen. Amaya screamed and turned her face away from the scene. When she opened them again, the body was crumpled on the floor, and the head rolled about the other men's feet.

The king seemed to have regained his composure completely, "The deed is done! We may now enter the kingdom of light!"

A huge tremor rocked the ground, and the mob was suddenly quieted. "Do not fear, my people," cried the king, "This is the coming we have waited for. The advent of the kingdom of light!"

The people began to cheer, but soon the tremors became worse. Children began crying, and their parents could not shush them. A great cracking sound began and the walls around them began crumbling. People began to panic and started running, anywhere. A large crack began to open in the floor, a red glow bathing the faces of all those trapped near it. The limp body slid toward the gap. The light bathed the face of the king, hot wind and bright sparks flowing through his hair as he, too, was pulled into the abyss.

Her guardian flew her up and away from the carnage, back up to the place where all they saw was the blue and green orb floating in space. But now red, jagged lines covered its surface. The heat was growing too much to bear, even out here. Then it blew apart.

Amaya covered her face as huge mountains of rock flew past her into remote areas of space. For a long time, everything was darkness and light and confusion.

**_Open your eyes._**

She opened them and saw _All the worlds._

Here there was a mountain. And there the plains. And there the desert. And there the jungle, and there the sea. All in pieces, completely separated from each other.

**_So the one world died, and the many were born_**.

* * *

Personwithlongname: Sorry for the long wait, but your patience has been rewarded. Aw, you think the fic is good? I'm so happy!

LethalFroggie: I'm so flattered! Here's the next chapter!

Riku: Ok, cliffie ended (finally). Geez, getting your reviews gives me such a great ego boost! I wuv you! (gives Riku of Darkness an obnoxiously big, heart-shaped basket of goodies)

Ice Dagger: Well, now you know why she's freaking out. Chapter 13 will be up soon, so you'll be able to see everyone else's reaction.


	13. Awakening

A/N: We hit the 50 review mark! I'm so excited! (Can I use anymore exclamation points?) And I say "we" because I couldn't have done it without you guys (unless I was a real loser who reviewed my own work 50 times)! Thank you soooooo much! Individual shout-outs are at the bottom. I'd also like to add a little note . . .for all the Riku-obsessed out there (like me) visit this website http/rikuonline. w2r. net

Disclaimer:

A28: I've got quite a crew here. I own Amaya, this creepy guy who lives under a rock . . . .

Dark Summon: In a stone. I live in the stone, not under it!

A28: Yeah, whatever. In any case I don't own the oh-so-important and incredibly hot Riku, Leon, or Cloud, or anything else from Kingdom Hearts. I think I'll go cry now.

DS & Amaya: Oh, you have us, honey!

A28: (Bursts into tears)

* * *

"Hey."

She looked over and smiled, "Hey,"

Okay . . .now what?Aerith and I had talked. She tries to act all sweet, but when she really wants something out of you, she'll keep bothering you about it until you tell her. It's annoying, but it does help. Not like I'd ever tell her that. Judging by that smug smile of hers, she already knows, though.

When she'd dragged all of it out of me; what had happened in the cavern, and all the guilt, she just pulled me into a big hug, the way she'd always done with all of us when we were upset. It made me feel like a child, being comforted by my mother, but for once I didn't care.

"You couldn't have saved them, Leon. None of us could. When are you going to let it go? That's all you have to do, sweetheart. Don't let it hurt you anymore."

We sat there for a while, on my bed, her just holding my head to her shoulder, and murmuring words to me, some that made sense and some that didn't. It didn't matter. It took some time before I took another breath and told her the rest of it.

"There's another thing, Aerith."

"What is it, honey?" Her words blowing through my hair as much as into my ear.

"There's a girl. She works in First District. And she looks so much like her . . ."

"But she's not, Leon."

I nodded. No, she couldn't be. Stupid of me to even think of that.

I almost felt Aerith's frustration, "I didn't say not to go for it, lunkhead. I just said that she's not Rinoa. Rinoa's gone. That doesn't mean that this other girl isn't nice, or isn't good for you." She shook her head a little; I think she knows my protests before I even say them. I can see why Cloud loves her. "You were only with Rinoa for how long? A few months, maybe? You were both teenagers, Leon. It's unlikely that you would have been together much longer, anyway. It just feels like she was the one because you didn't really get a chance to find out. Just don't expect this other girl to be Rinoa. That wouldn't be fair to her."

We sat there in the quiet for a few moments while I let all of what she said sink in. She patted me on the head, "Let's face it, Leon, you could use a date."

I hate it when she pats me on the head like that. It messes up my hair. And I have the sneaking suspicion that she knows it, too. But she had a point, and that's why I'm back at the Sunglass Hut for the second time in one day.

Oh. That girl's looking at me. She's probably expecting me to follow "Hey" with some sort of coherent remark. Damn.

"So . . .those sunglasses. They're really good at . . .blocking the sun."

She giggled, "Well, that's good, seeing as that's what they're supposed to do."

I just sort of shrugged. Okay, I'm embarrassed. She doesn't need to know it, " . . .Whatever."

She shrugged back. We both stood in the silence for a while. She started straightening the displays. I wished I could fiddle with them, too. But she didn't need to know I was nervous.

And why the hell shouldn't I be? I've only been out of the romantic . . .thing . . .for close to a decade!

. . .God, that makes me sound so old.

"Hey, Mr. Leon."

"Leon."

"Huh?" She looked confused.

"Just Leon," I said, "I'm not some old man, or anything."

"Oh! Of course not. It's just that, well . . ." she shuffled her feet, "Everyone kind of looks up to you around here. I mean, I remember that night I first ended up here, when you took the time to get me set up at the hotel. You even got me this job, so I could get my own place."

I had gotten her this job? I didn't remember that . . .

She wrinkled her nose, "You don't remember me, do you?"

Uh-oh. Caught. Maybe I should try the enigmatic silence again. She shook her head, "It's okay. I know you help a lot of people. I probably didn't stand out at all."

I know she wants me to correct her, but what am I supposed to say? I don't remember. She rolls her eyes, "You really know how to win a girl over, Leon."

What the . . .? Is she making fun of me? Then she laughed out loud. "You should see how indignant you look! Fine, you don't want to be taken for an old man? Let's go out someplace, and you can prove you're not."

Did she just . . .?

"How's tomorrow night sound? At seven . . .or eight?"

I just stood there for a second. Would it really be okay to . . .oh, what the hell. It's not like I'm gonna marry her or anything. It's just a date. You don't want to be taken for an old man? Prove you're not.

"Sure. I'll pick you up at seven."

She grinned, "Great."

* * *

She'd been lying still for a while. After her first outburst in Merlin's house, she'd gone quiet. That was good. I mean, not that I liked seeing her unconscious or anything, _that_ was bad, but watching her scream and cry and look at me without really seeing anything . . .I shivered. That was pretty high up on the list of "Scary Things Riku Has Seen In His Young Life". Although seeing her lying here, this still, this quiet, was making its own appearance on the list. It was too much like when I'd seen Kairi this way, when she'd lost her heart. 

But, at least then, I knew what was happening to her. I had no clue what was happening to Amaya. No one did. Everyone had come in to check in on her. I think Yuffie was disappointed that I was in here; she couldn't look through Amaya's pockets for loose change. I laughed a little. The sound startled me, after being in this quiet room for . . .how many hours? I hadn't really been keeping track.

The sheets rustled on the other side of the room, "Riku?"

"Yeah, Kairi?"

"You're still awake?"

"Yeah."

" . . .It's two in the morning."

"Really?" I looked over her sleep-rumpled head to the alarm clock, "Hm. It didn't feel that late."

"Shouldn't you get somebody else to . . .I dunno . . .take a shift or something?"

"I'm fine."

"Liar," she said without any malice, "You're tired." She wrapped herself in her bedspread and walked over to my chair like a multi-colored, walking, Kairi-burrito. "I'll watch her. You go to bed."

"But—"

She put up one hand, palm facing me, "I hereby solemnly swear to inform you if there is the slightest change. Happy?"

Not really. But my eyes were drooping, and I wouldn't be any use to her asleep. What if she took a turn for the worse while I slept? It wouldn't matter whether I was asleep in a chair next to her, or asleep one room over, I would be equally unhelpful. "Are you sure? You're awake enough?"

"Awake enough to let you snag a couple hours. If I need to, I can go wake up Sora or Cloud or Leon or . . .well the other two are kind of out of the question, seeing as Yuffie would rob us blind in our sleep, and I really don't want to wake Aerith . . .but I have those three."

"And you'll wake me if anything happens?"

"Yes."

"_Anything_. You promise?"

"Yes, I promise you worry-wart. Go. To. Bed."

I finally got up and the Kairi-burrito sat in my chair, settling herself in for the long watch. The dim light from the hallway illuminated Sora curled up in one of the beds. At least, I think it was Sora; all but the top of his head was hidden under the blankets. He never had gotten used to the fact that most places were, in fact, colder than Destiny Islands.

I shut the door behind me, then reopened it as an afterthought, so that I could hear if anything happened. I peeled off my shirt—after how sticky it had been that afternoon, the verb was appropriate. I probably stank, but didn't really feel like finding my way to the shower and using someone else's shampoo at two in the morning. I'd shower later.

Like after the sun was up. I didn't even feel like fumbling with the dresser to find one of those pairs of sweatpants Aerith said she'd picked up earlier that day; I'd sleep in my boxers. Not like anyone was gonna care. So I chucked off my pants and crawled between the cool sheets. I don't even remember setting my head to the pillow.

* * *

**_Selfish, selfish . . .you're all selfish._**

"Who are you?"

He could see himself. Standing in that same cave back home, with that door that went nowhere. There was no doorknob on the door, no hinges, just a door stuck in the middle of a rock wall. But, somehow, he had managed to come through it.

"I could show you other worlds, if you like."

I gave him a suspicious look—why hadn't I been more suspicious?—and asked, "Why? What's in it for you?"

He chuckled, "Straight to the chase, hm? Well, I've been working on a little . . .project . . .for some time now. There are seven girls that are vitally, crucially, important to this project. Unfortunately, they have been scattered to many worlds, and the only way to find them is to visit all the worlds, one by one, until I find them." Why hadn't I asked what he was using the girls for? I had just thought I'd leave it alone—it was this weirdo's business, not mine. "I will open this world for you, if you will help me find them."

I shifted a little uncomfortably, "What do I have to do?"

I remembered what he'd explained to me, about opening the door and letting the darkness in. There was a lot he told me. It seemed impossible, even to me, that I could have been so callous, that I took the chance of losing everything. Because I wanted everything. I wanted it so bad, it felt like this place was so small, the sky was so low, that it was crushing me. I couldn't breathe. I would have gone with Ansem if he had just been offering me air. And he offered to teach me to fly.

I was ashamed of that little part of me. That part that can just shut everyone, everyone I ever knew, out of my world if they get in the way of what I want. But even through the shame, shame so bad I wanted to cry, I could hear a little voice saying, _But if you'd played your cards right, if you'd just been a little smarter, it could have been worth it._ Would I take the chance again? _Yes._ Even knowing . . .? _Always. Always take the chance._

**_Always take the chance, as long as you're not betting yourself._**

_But I was betting myself._

_**It's always just a fun game, just a fun little mind game, until you get hurt. You don't stop the game when other people get hurt.**_

What could I say? He was right. I do play games. But it's not the power, though it's fairly easy to get drunk on that, it's the adrenaline rush of playing. Of constantly having that risk of being found out, that risk of being caught, and then the jubilance of pulling it off.

_But I didn't pull it off . . ._

Images spiraled. Off-center pictures and broken reflections spun, showing me all the times that things had not gone according to plan. I felt sick. Sick because of all the things I'd done, and because that voice was still going in the back of my head, telling me that things could have so easily been different if I'd just played my cards a little better . . .

**_You can't stop, can you?_** That voice sounded disgusted. **_Even now you can't stop. Why can't you ever stop?_**

I saw a man, dressed like a king. His face was red with a light that came from below him, and sparks kept landing in his dark hair. He looked like a god. A mad god, worshipping his own destruction.

I saw a man, dressed like a king. His amber eyes sliced right through me, his white hair shocking against his bronzed skin. He didn't quite smile, but he didn't quite frown, either. But he looked vaguely amused as he studied me, at what I couldn't tell.

I saw a teenaged boy. Pale skin that I knew never tanned, no matter how much time he spent in the sun. White hair looked shocking on Ansem, but they didn't look shocking on this boy. It was the eyes that always stood out—a bright blue that everyone exclaimed they'd never seen before. They looked crazed here, as he brought a blade back, intending to strike someone I couldn't see, just in front of him. Someone I was about to strike . . .

I saw a little girl, crying. Brushing tears and brown hair out of her eyes as she looked out a stone window at the dead land around her.

**_You never stop._**

* * *

I gasped myself awake. I sat up and held my head in my hands. 

"Hey, you're awake!" Kairi half-whispered, rubbing my back in circles, "Do you need anything? Water, or anything?"

I nodded, and she shuffled her way toward the kitchen. "Thanks," I muttered as she put the full glass in my hand.

"I need to go get someone and let them know you're awake. Will you be okay for a minute?"

"Hm?" I looked at her for a few seconds, not quite comprehending what she'd said. Then I got it, "Oh. Yeah, I'm fine."

She gave me a long look, "Oookay, I'll be right back, then." She shuffled off again, still wearing her bedspread wrapped around her.

I drank half the glass and set it back on the nightstand. I dropped my head back into my hands and rubbed my hands through my hair. What was all that? This thing, I stared at the necklace I was still wearing, Is going to drive me crazy.

I shivered, remembering the look on the king's face as he fell into the fire. He wasn't afraid; he was rapturous. And all those other memories . . .some were about me—they couldn't actually be mine, because if they were mine, I wouldn't be able to see myself—some were about my father. Some looked like they must have been about . . .Riku . . .but how could that have been? Unless Ansem and Riku had both held this stone at one point . . .but Riku didn't even seem to recognize it, and I hadn't had it before I got to Traverse Town . . .had I?

I looked at the stone in horror. _I can't remember when I got this . . ._I tore it off my neck and flung it onto the nightstand. I held my knees against my chest and buried my face against them.

Someone walked into the room, "Amaya?"

I looked up and got the shock of my young life.

Riku was there. In my doorway. Wearing only his boxers. Oh. My. God.

Before I could even think of something clever to say, like "hi", he sat himself down in the chair that Kairi had just vacated, "Figures you wake up about an hour after I finally go to bed," he laughed. He'd taken my hand and started rubbing circles on it with his thumb, "You okay?"

"Um, hmm, uh, yeah, okay. I'm okay." Suuuure I am.

He didn't seem to notice my inability to spit out a coherent sentence; he must have been tired, "We were all pretty worried about you, there."

" . . .How long was I out?" Very good. Sentences. Thumb . . .on hand . . .wearing only boxers . . .no! Conversation! Must . . .not . . .act . . .like . . .horny . . .teenaged boy . . .

"Since this afternoon. Do you . . .remember anything?"

I looked up at his face, "Did I say something in my sleep or something?"

"You could say that. You kind of . . .well . . .you kind of freaked out at Merlin's house."

I immediately looked away. I freaked out? Oh my God, he thinks I'm some sort of psychopath or something. "Is Merlin around?"

"He went home, but Kairi was gonna go wake Leon to go get him."

"Oh." I took my time following the designs on the multi-colored Bed-In-A-Bag sets that Aerith and Kairi had decided on. They were pretty.

"Hey," he jostled my hand a little, "No goin' quiet on me. Whatever happened . . .we just want to get to the bottom of it and make sure you're okay."

I thought of the necklace sitting over on the nightstand. As if he could read my thoughts, he looked and saw my necklace haphazardly strewn across it. He took my chin in his free hand, "Is the necklace what caused it, you think?"

I tried to imagine bluffing my way out, no that's absolutely ridiculous, how in heaven could a rock do anything to you (unless someone dropped it on your cranium, of course), it must be something else. But the way he asked, and the way he looked, he wouldn't think I was crazy. And I really needed someone to not think I was crazy.

"You think it might be?"

"It was glowing really weird just before you . . .um . . ."

"Freaked out?" I choked around the uncomfortable lump forming in my throat.

"Hey, hey," he said, letting go of my hand and chin to start wiping off the tears that had started rolling down my face, "Don't cry! Don't cry . . .listen, I didn't mean 'freak out', it's just that I was kind of scared, a little, that you weren't okay." I started crying harder, "But you are okay! You're gonna be okay," he pulled me into a hug, "You're gonna be okay."

I think I felt him kiss my forehead, but I wasn't sure.

* * *

**Review Responses**

Jen: Sorry for the confusion! No, I didn't completely change the story, Amaya just went off to La La Land for a while.

Riku of Darkness: Wow! I'm so glad! Especially because this was version two. Version one (which I completely loved) got lost when my hard drive melted (stupid HP people left the plastic cover on it when they installed it, believe it or not), and I tried really hard to recreate it. I can't help but feel as though I felt short anyway . . .

Eyes: Sorry, there was no Riku in Chapter 12, but I shall not leave him out of a chapter so carelessly again! Pinky promise!

Black Sheep: Welcome to a new reader! So glad you liked this! And I'm glad you liked Kairi . . .I really found her quite annoying in the game, and I think that's because the creators didn't spend enough time on her character, so I've been trying to make her a little more likeable.

BlackPaintedWhite: Welcome to my KH ficcy! Wow. I hope I can continue to live up to your expectations. I'll try my best!

Dezina: Yay, another new reader! Thank you so much for the review! I'll continue as I can.


	14. That Stone

A/N: Yes, I know it's been a long time since the last update. I have no excuse. I have revised some of the old chapters (mostly, I just got rid of that squicky love triangle I'd created) so now I can focus on Riku and Amaya again! Yay! I know I should be begging your forgiveness, not asking favors, but if any of you happen to drop by one or three of my oneshots, I would be oh-so-happy! Of course, I'm happy just to have you here, so don't feel obligated by any means.

**Chapter 14**

Kairi walked back in (yes, still looking like a multi-colored burrito) and gasped, "Riku! You made her cry! What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything! She just . . ."

"It's not his fault," Amaya said brokenly, and pushed herself away from me. I frowned. Away was not good. "I just . . .I saw things in my dreams, and I started blubbering. My own stupid fault. Really, Riku was comforting me."

Then Kairi smiled a little mischievously, "Oh, sure. Comforting you," she winked, "I gotcha. If you wanted some alone time you could have just told me so. I know how it is."

Amaya looked absolutely mortified, but I just stepped in smoothly, "Oh, yeah, you know Kairi. As if you and Sora actually do anything anyway."

Now it was Kairi's turn to blush and be embarrassed. Heh heh, score one for the Riku!

I didn't really have much time to revel in it, though, because then Merlin and Leon walked in, reminding me that we had serious stuff going on here. The whole reason we'd been worried about Amaya in the first place, right.

I jumped out of the chair and let Merlin sit in it, where he immediately took one of Amaya's hands in both of his, "How are you feeling my dear?"

She took a shuddering breath, " . . .Okay, I guess."

His eyes immediately strayed to her neck, where a chain very obviously wasn't. His eyebrows furrowed, "Where is your necklace?"

"On the table," she pointed with her free hand, "I . . .well, you'll think me absolutely ridiculous . . ."

"Anything that might be a lead would be welcomed right now, no matter how strange it may sound."

"Well . . ." she looked at him helplessly, "I think the necklace may have caused it. Or rather, the stone I had set in the necklace. I was having all sorts of horrible dreams . . ."

He nodded, "That's actually not so strange, Amaya. People have been known to have dreams, or see illusions, when carrying a summon gem. Sora experienced many waking dreams when Kairi hid her heart within his."

"He did?" Kairi asked, surprised.

Merlin turned, "Yes, indeed. He told me later how he thought he might have been going crazy, because he kept seeing you everywhere. He must have been picking up on your thoughts and feelings. Which," he turned back to Amaya, "Is what is probably happening with this summon gem. But because this particular spirit is angry, the dreams and visions would, naturally, be negative in nature."

"That's another thing . . ." Amaya tapped her thumb on the back of Merlin's hand contemplatively, "I thought I was seeing memories, not just dreams."

"That's entirely possible," Merlin agreed.

"But some of them . . .couldn't have belonged to the summon. Some of them must have belonged to other people."

Merlin sat further forward in his chair, "Tell us everything, my dear."

"I . . .I . . ." she covered her face with her free hand and started a new round of sobs, "I cannot! If I told you . . .you wouldn't . . .you couldn't . . .!"

"Whose memories did you see, Amaya? Someone you know?"

"Yes. Yes," she nodded, still crying. I wasn't sure if I wanted to hug her and just keep hugging her until the tears stopped, or leave the room. Like I said before, I'm not real comfortable with tears. In the end, I did nothing.

"Just bits and pieces. Most of it doesn't make any sense. There are some memories, with P—with Ansem in them. And some of other people."

"Is it possible for a summon to absorb the memories of those it comes into contact with?" Merlin wondered aloud.

"Oh! And," she sniffed, "I've been having other dreams. Not just tonight."

My eyes must have bugged out of my head, "You had other dreams? When? Why didn't you tell us?"

She shrugged, "I didn't think much of them at the time. I can't remember most of what went on anyway. I know there was a man and a woman, both in black. I couldn't see the man's face."

My heart sank in my chest when she said that. She didn't know that the man in black was Ansem. It was just as well that she couldn't remember what they were talking about; she wouldn't have liked it.

"But I did want to ask you something, Riku," she continued, as if she'd said nothing out of the ordinary.

"Me? What is it?"

"Do you remember when I got that?" She pointed at the necklace on the table.

Okay, now I was really getting worried, "Today, Amaya. You and Leon went to buy it earlier today."

"No," she shook her head, "We bought the necklace today, but the stone I had before. I just can't remember how long before. Did I have it when I met you?"

I shook my head, "If you did, you didn't mention it. Today was the first time I'd heard anything about it."

"Then when did I get it?" Amaya said half to herself, staring off into nothing as she tried to find the moment in her brain when she'd found the stone.

"_Aren't you forgetting something?" Leon asked Yuffie._

_Her eyes widened, " . . .No . . ."_

"_That stone?"_

"_What stone?"_

_"The one you found next to Amaya."_

"Yuffie." Amaya said.

"Yuffie?" Everyone said at once, doing a classic double-take at Amaya.

She looked up at us and nodded, "Yes. Yuffie said she'd found the stone on the ground beside me when we'd teleported. Leon and Aerith assumed it was mine, but I'd never seen it before. I kept it anyway, thinking it might be yours," she pointed at me, "And I could return it to you, but by the next morning I'd forgotten all about returning it. It had already felt like I'd had it forever."

Leon pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, "But it couldn't have originated here in Traverse. Things don't originate here; they come from other places. Everyone, and everything."

Amaya laughed, "Well, that can't be so! This is a world, too, after all. There must have been something here!"

"Actually," Merlin tapped on Amaya's hand with his own, "this wasn't originally a world."

"It was just another asteroid floating through Interspace, until Merlin found a place where magic and spirits naturally gathered. Now with every person that comes into Traverse Town, a tiny bit of their world comes with it, until it's the sprawling city you see now."

"So everything, except that one asteroid, came from another world?"

"Yes, and that asteroid couldn't have carried that stone."

"Why not?"

"Because my house is built on top of that original asteroid. One would assume that I, or certainly the Fairy Godmother, when she joined us, would have come across it, had it been there."

"Oh." Amaya answered quietly.

"You really have no clue where it came from?" I asked.

She looked straight at me, "No."

Merlin released Amaya's hands and started pacing the floor. Kairi sank back onto her bed. Leon leaned against the wall, near the door. Amaya kept her eyes trained on her fingers, aimlessly twisting around each other. I just stood there, feeling really out of place and stupid. This rock was bad, that much was clear. The fact that it held Ansem's memories, and that it was found near me, was beginning to make things look bad.

It felt like my heart was sinking down into my toes, and it was taking my stomach right along with it. I just wanted to scream. Are you stupid? A little voice said in my head. Did you really think it was going to be this easy? Did you really think you could just go back to your friends like nothing happened?

"The Heart of Worlds." Merlin suddenly said. Everyone just stared at him, but he paid no attention and started pacing faster.

"The Heart of Worlds was Sora's destination, where he was to defeat Ansem, close the door, and restore balance to the worlds, correct?" He didn't wait for anyone to answer before continuing, "What happened to the Heart of Worlds after the door was closed?"

"It disappeared," Kairi answered from the bed. "It dissolved into little pieces of worlds, and things went back to where they belonged."

"But, a summon gem, in essence, does not belong anywhere, because its world has been destroyed. You said yourself, Kairi, that the worlds were not properly restored."

"So, a being with no place to return to has to return here, just as everyone else does."

"Wait, that can't be right," I started, "The Heart of Worlds disappeared a while before Amaya and I got here. Why did it appear the same time as us?"

It was quiet. Merlin took off his hat and raked his fingers through his thinning hair. Kairi screwed her mouth up to one side in her typical "thinking" pose. Leon didn't move, which, I was learning, was also typical. Then Amaya spoke.

"It stayed in the Void."

"What was that, my dear?" Merlin replaced his hat.

"It . . .couldn't come here, because its world isn't destroyed, because it doesn't belong to any one world. It belongs to all the worlds, both those still existing and the ones that have been destroyed. So it stayed in Interspace, until it ran into . . .someone . . ." she trailed off.

Merlin went very still. "I think . . ." he began, "You should tell me everything you saw."

* * *

I looked up at Merlin. The soft, grandfatherly look he'd had before was gone, replaced with something harder. He didn't seem angry, at least from what I could tell, but he certainly wasn't going to take any nonsense. 

"I . . .could we speak about it alone? I'm sorry everyone," I turned to everyone's shocked faces, "But some of the things in the dreams were . . .it might be better to have an objective listener," I finished lamely.

" . . .Whatever you say." Leon walked out the door.

"Umm . . .I'll just move onto the couch or something," Kairi picked up her pillow and shuffled down the hallway.

Riku just looked at me for a while. He opened his mouth once, then shut it again. He walked out and closed the door behind him.

Now I was alone with Merlin. I took a deep breath. "I'm . . .not quite sure where to start."

He regained a little bit of that grandfatherly look as he sat back in the chair, "I'm told that it is often easiest to tell a story chronologically, starting at the beginning and working forward."

I smiled.

* * *

Ice Dagger: Well, she may very well be daft. She is my OC after all. (Like mother like daughter) Amaya: What? I thought Mama died! A28: (sweatdrop) That's not what I meant, Amaya. 

Riku of Darkness: Wow . . .and it never ceases to be breath taking to read your reviews. No one ever praises me like you do! (gives her another basket of goodies)

TigerKiss: I'm sorry it took so long to get this chapter out, but I'm still keeping my promise!

BlackPaintedWhite: It's supposed to be a little difficult to tell who is talking, because both Riku and Amaya are seeing a lot of the same things. And, actually, I think all of us have that little bit of selfishness in us; different circumstances bring it out of us.

Kayari: Ooh! New reader! Yay! Hopefully I didn't scare you off with the long break between updates.

Extra Special Thank Yous to Angel Gunner Lenne, Avye, Devilgirl57, Doomboy2000, Etsu Mura, EyeoftheTigerKissoftheDragon, Ice Dagger, Riku of Darkness, and The Dr. for putting this fic on their Favorite Stories Lists!

TwilightGirl: Sorry you have trouble with the POV changes. . .I have gotten comments on them, but the choppy scene breaks are such a big part of my style (don't I sound egotistical? Like I have a style!) that I have a hard time knowing how to fix them . . .they're actually supposed to be a little confusing, but I don't want them to detract from the story. Anyone have any suggestions?

Whatever: I don't think you're a crazed lunatic, I know the feeling! That's why I feel so bad about not updating this for so long. Hopefully you came back . . .if you have, be ready for the long haul, 'cause this thing probably has another ten chapters or so hidden in it.

Kenmun: Yes . . .I rather enjoyed that image myself. (Throws away all Riku's PJs) You're sleeping in boxers forever! Mwa ha ha ha!

Another Extra Special Thank You to Ice Dagger, TigerKiss, and Riku of Darkness for putting me on your Favorite Authors Lists! (starts crying) I love you all so much!

One More Extra Note: Also thanks for all the people who hit chapter 13 without reviewing. I'd love to hear your input, but just knowing you made it all the way to chapter 13 without giving up means you must like the story at least a little, right? Review this time!


	15. What Are You Doing?

A/N: Okay, it seems the writing bug is back for a little while. Not promising anything, but I'm hoping to have a chapter up every other week or so. I'm tentatively setting the finish date in April. Thank you for all your patience and support.

**Chapter 15**

"So . . .all the worlds were once one. That explains why they keep trying to connect to each other. And with the world's end being such a violent one, it's not surprising that he would ally himself with forces aimed toward the darkness."

I bit my lip and looked away. It was disturbing to hear my father, my beloved Papa, spoken about that way, like some sort of evil monster.

"It is clear that the stone was in Ansem's possession for a time, but why did it pass to you, I wonder?"

From the way he looked at me, I wasn't sure if he expected me to have the answer or not. I took a deep breath, "Because I was there, at the destruction of Hollow Bastion. And because I, myself, am responsible for the death of a world." Had I heard him gasp? "It wasn't what I had in mind to do at the time, but the fact that I thought only of myself did mean the destruction of that world."

" . . .You are magically talented, are you not? Have you been trained?"

I was surprised that he knew, though I'd heard that, for experienced mages, it was possible to sense magical talent in another. I shook my head, "Almost everything I know is self-taught. When Hollow Bastion was destroyed, I somehow got myself to another world. It must have been some sort of teleportation, but I did it with no goal in mind."

He frowned, "That's extremely dangerous."

I nodded, "Well, Hollow Bastion wasn't a safe place to be, either. And, really, I had no idea what I was doing while I was doing it. I only knew that I had to be away. Anyway, when I landed, I was still so frightened that I tried to erect a shield, not only around myself, but around the entire planet. Obviously, that took a lot more power than I had; it destroyed all life on that world. And, during the nine years I stayed there, nothing ever grew back, except for a small area near my own dwelling."

He nodded, "Mages tend to have a stronger life force than most people. The plants must have been reacting to that. Elsewhere on the planet, there was nothing to draw on; everything was being directed toward that shield. The fact that you teleported here, though, means that you must have broken your own shield." He smiled, "It might have been easier to just take it down."

I laughed a little, "Well, I didn't know . . .it is . . .rather difficult to take shields down once you've put them up, isn't it?"

"If you still fear what it is on the other side, yes, very difficult. Remember that magic, more than any other skill, is tuned in to your own feelings and emotions. It is nearly impossible to do a magic that you do not want to do."

"Because to work magic, you must believe in another reality."

He nodded, "And it is difficult to believe in a reality that we do not want to exist, isn't it?"

We sat in silence for a little while. Someone walked down the hallway, but it was a different door that opened, so I relaxed again.

" . . .Merlin. There's something else I must tell you."

He nodded, as if he'd been expecting me to say that. I continued.

"Ansem is . . .was . . .my father. And Kairi's as well."

"What are you doing?"

My heart stopped.

* * *

"What are you doing?"

I turned quickly and found myself face to face with Leon's chest. I looked up, "Ah . . .hi Leon."

The door cracked open and Amaya's face peeked out. She looked at Leon, then me. Her eyes started spilling over and she ran past me, down the hallway. By the time Kairi asked her what was wrong, the door had already slammed shut behind her. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, could I not wonder about something? Just this once, could I leave it alone? No, of course not.

"Riku was listening at the door."

"What? You have no proof!" Leon raised an eyebrow, "Okay, I was. But it's only because I was worried, you know? I wanted to make sure she was okay." Leon continued to stare at me. "Okay, okay, and I wanted to know why exactly she was sending us all out of the room, too, but mostly because I was worried! I mean, what could have been so serious that she would keep us all out of there?"

Leon closed his eyes, sighed, then started walking toward his own room. He went to the door he'd opened earlier, but had apparently never entered. 'Well, duh, Riku, that's because he saw you listening at the door.' He turned, hand on the door and stared at me before gesturing impatiently for me to come forward. Oh crap. Don't get me wrong; I'm pretty good with a sword, but fist fighting against Leon? They were gonna have to scrape me off the floor. And Aerith would just cry about carpet stains. I tried to look confident as I walked past him into his room, and as he shut the door behind him.

"Sit." He pointed at his bed, setting against the opposite wall. I tried not to look at how scarily neat the room was, or how the bed was made with hospital corners.

" . . .You listened at the door when she clearly wanted only Merlin to hear."

"I'm sorry, okay? Like I said, I was worried about her!"

He shrugged and leaned against the closed door, "I'm not the one you need to apologize to. But, I do need to know what you've heard."

I didn't know whether to laugh or be angry, "You wanna know, too!"

He shook his head, "She sent all of us out of the room because she did not want to look any more suspicious then she had to. I'll admit, I do not know about these dreams, but they probably related to other things that I do know about her. Things that she asked me not to tell you, Kairi, and Sora. I gave my word, and I am keeping it. If you heard what I believe you did, however, I must ask that you keep it from the others."

"And what do you think I heard?"

He just looked at me for a long moment. I never understand that phrase. Long moment. Doesn't a moment mean a short period of time? The fact that I have time to comment on this tells you what a very long moment it was.

" . . .What did she talk about?"

"What do you want to know?"

There was another long pause. I didn't get it. If he just asked me for everything, he could have made me tell him. It sounded like he already knew the most important part anyway. She was the daughter of Ansem. If she had been from Hollow Bastion, Leon had to know that already.

" . . .She said the stone had memories of Ansem. Did she speak of him?"

Ah, he did know. And he wanted to see if I knew or not. "She said that Ansem was her father."

He closed his eyes, "I was afraid that was what you heard. She was most adamant that you not be told. She really didn't want any of you to know, but she was most concerned about your reaction. So how are you reacting?"

His eyes met mine, and I was suddenly glad that he didn't often make eye contact. They were a steel blue, hard and cold. It felt like I was some bug being pinned to a collector's board.

"Amaya's Amaya. It doesn't matter who her dad was. I mean, you can't help who your parents are. And quite honestly, I don't know why no one's gone after her yet."

He nodded, "Okay." He stepped away from the door and opened it. Before I stepped out of the room, a windbreaker hit me in the face.

"Traverse Town; you don't like the weather, wait a minute. It's started raining."

I fought the jacket off my face, searching for sleeves, and saw Leon putting on one as well. "It's Cloud's, so it'll be a little big on you."

"Wait," I pulled on the jacket, tugging at the sleeves, which were falling way over my hands, "Where are you going?"

"To look for Amaya. Where are you going?"

"I'll take second district, you take third?"

I swear for a second he almost smiled. "Meet back here in a hour. If we still haven't found her, we'll wake Cloud and Sora and try again."

"Will do," I said, and walked out the door into the rain.


	16. Rainwater

Disclaimer: Don't own anything except Amaya and the creepy dude inside the rock.

A/N: Now, finally, here comes the scene that started the entire fic. Yep, I wrote this entire story just to get to this scene. It's just grown so out of control that it's gotten (gasp!) a plot! This moment will seem anticlimactic to everyone but me. (tries to put a sweat-dropping emoticon here but fails because of fan's formatting) Fear the angst!

**Chapter 16**

I hadn't realized it was raining until I had run out the door, but it didn't stop me. He knew he knew he knew he knew and I'd seen the shock on his face and I wasn't going to wait for the hurt and the disgust and the anger that would be there next because he knew.

I didn't know where I was going, I just kept running, across the empty square and down street after street, deciding on the spur of the moment which corners to turn, and how many blocks to go, and reading neon signs that said Shoes and Dresses and Hats. The rain starting coming down harder, and it felt as though I'd just jumped into a pool of water. I didn't think it was possible to be this wet. But I kept running, because I had no idea where I was going, and if I stopped then I would be there, and I didn't want to be here. I could feel the huge drops hitting my bare arms as I ran, the puddles from the ground soaking through my pajama legs, and the water tricking down into the shoes I'd jammed onto my feet. I almost liked the sharp sting of every frigid drop against my already-cold skin, the sight of my breath rising in a cloud before me as I kept running. Anywhere, just to be away.

Why did I think I could do this? Why did I think I was worthy of this? If I was trapped, alone, on a barren planet, it was my own fault that it was that way. It was my own fault that Papa stopped trying to call to me through the shield. He'd seen what I'd done and he'd stopped loving me and I wasn't there to help him anymore and that's why he was bad. Don't be so egotistical! Like I ever could have helped him! But all I ever do is bad. All I ever do is destroy things. That's why no one wanted to be my friend. Everyone wanted to be Kairi's friend because Kairi wasn't like us. Kairi was sunshine and smiles, and Amaya and Ansem were dark and brooding and everyone just left them alone, because nobody liked them because they were dark and brooding and they got what they deserved so leave them alone.

It was a while before I finally stopped on some street I didn't recognize and sat down next to a soggy sign that read "Today Only! Buy One Get One Half Price!" and realized with a start that I was crying, and probably had been for some time. I tried to control my sobs but gave up in favor of muffling them, my arms wrapped around my knees and my face hiding behind them. I stayed like that for a while before I started wondering what I was going to do. I'd just run away from the only friends I had here, but I couldn't go back. Now that I'd seen Riku's shock, I realized what I burden I must have been to the others, how much I'd been asking when I begged them to forget my father's sins. And when I asked myself to forget mine. I knew that was no longer possible.

But where could I go? As much as I deserved it, I desperately did not want to go back to the planet from which I'd come: either of them. According to the others, Hollow Bastion was no more our home now than Traverse Town was—it was an empty shell of a place, completely overrun by Heartless, even after the door had been closed. And I knew for a fact that other world was still dead. I had done enough damage to that place; I would not return. But where to go? I couldn't seem to help causing pain wherever I went.

I heard footsteps coming down the alleyway, and quickly tried to stifle my sobs. I must not have quieted them quickly enough, for still the footsteps moved forward. With a desperate effort I pushed myself off the wet cobblestones and tore down to the other side of the alley, where it connected with another larger street.

"Wait, Amaya!" The footsteps followed me.

No, no, no, no. The word played as a constant mantra in my head as I quickly turned down another small alley, but he caught up to me.

"Wait, Amaya. Wait. Will you wait?" He grabbed a hold of my arm, which I ineffectually tried to tear out of his grasp.

"Let me go," I almost sobbed.

"I'm sorry, Amaya. I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have listened at the door, okay? I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" I almost laughed. "You're sorry. Well, yeah, I'm sorry, too. I 'm sorry that I'm a world-destroying freak who's dad made everyone's life a living hell!"

I stopped trying to pull away, but I sank against the brick wall at my back, dragging him down with me.

We just sat there a while, with him in a sort of half-kneeling position in front of me. Then he started laughing. "I still can't believe you used a curse word."

I glared at him, "All this stuff, and all you can think about is my word choice? I'm allowed to curse when I'm upset, too, aren't I?"

"Well, yeah, but it sounds funny coming out of you. Come on. Let's go back."

He tried to pull me up, but I used every muscle in my body to keep sitting. "Don't you get it? I can't go back! Don't you see what we do? We destroy things. We destroy lives."

"He destroyed things. You didn't. You didn't do anything! For heaven's sake . . ." He leaned over and brushed some of my wet hair out of my face, "I am way more responsible for any of this than you could ever be."

I shook my head, "You don't understand. I'm just as capable . . .I could have done any of the stuff he did. I could have . . ."

"But you haven't. God, Amaya, you don't even understand how innocent you really are . . ."

"No! You don't understand!" I made him look at me. I made myself look into those blue-green eyes that still didn't see. "I have. I destroyed an entire planet. Just because I was too afraid to face what we had unleashed. I didn't care about anyone else. I destroyed all life on an entire world!" I saw the shock wash over him anew with this information. I swallowed and went on. "The world was barren because of me. The shield was of my own creation! And I used you because I was too weak to take it down myself!" I tried to say some more things, but even I'm not sure what they were, and they were so lost in the sobs that were racking my whole body I knew he didn't understand either. I tried to brace myself as best as I could for what was coming. He would yell and scream, or maybe he would just tell me to get out, to go back where I'd come from. Maybe he would blame me for everything that happened to him, or maybe he'd just walk away and leave me here. Whatever he did, I was ready; he couldn't break my heart any more than it was already broken. I wasn't prepared for what really happened.

I heard the rustling of his jacket and felt the shadow falling over me without really comprehending what they meant. I almost jumped out of my skin when I felt his hand touch my shoulder. I looked up at him, and his face didn't say anything about anger, disgust, shock or fear. I did not know the look he was giving me, only that it seemed like the saddest smile I'd ever seen.

He stared at me like that for a minute, trying to brush the rainwater and tears off my face, only to have more fall down it. "Then . . ." he started, moving closer, so he was on his knees, one hand on the wall near my shoulder, the other on the wet ground, "We're the same." And then he kissed me.

I'm not going to describe it like some kind of fairy-tale kiss or something, because that would be a plain lie. It was my first kiss, and, I think his too, so we were clumsy. I was still crying. Our noses bumped. His lips were chapped. I didn't open my eyes when he moved away and started nuzzling under my ear, or when he pressed his lips softly to the corner of mine.

"Come on," he said softly, "Let's get out of this rain, huh?" He took off the windbreaker and put it over me, though I couldn't see what purpose that would serve, seeing as I was already about as soaked as I was going to get. I didn't protest. I walked the first few blocks in the sort of numb bonelessness that follows a good cry. I took myself by surprise when I stopped walking.

He felt the pull on his hand when I stopped following. He turned, "What it is?"

I motioned him closer. He moved closer. And I kissed him. And I kissed him again. And then he kissed me.

"Seriously," he said, leaning his forehead against mine, "As fun as this is, I need to get you inside before you catch pneumonia."

"Who cares about pneumonia?" I tried to catch his lips again.

"I do. I can't kiss you if you've got pneumonia." He paused for a minute. "It's okay, you know. You don't have to be afraid of going back."

I closed my eyes and pillowed my head on his shoulder. "I—What will they think, Riku?"

"Well, from what I understand," he rubbed circles on my back, "You've got some really good friends back there, that have known all along, and they've had no problem with it. And if Sora and Kairi could forgive me, after everything I've done . . ." he paused for a second.

I nodded against him, "I don't know all of it. I wouldn't have anyone but you tell me that. But I do know parts of it."

He sighed. "If they could forgive me after all I put them through, why should they have any problem with you? Okay?"

I took a deep breath, "Okay."

"Okay, then let's go."

Just as we made it to the front door, the handle started turning from the inside and we were confronted with Leon, who ended up doing a funny little dance to let us in and avoid hitting us with the gunblade. He, naturally, discarded his rain slicker and leaned against the wall as if nothing had happened.

"Oh! You guys are soaking wet!" Aerith walked forward, covered from her neck all the way to her manicured toes in a pink fluffy robe. "Here you go, we'll get each of you set in a bath to get all that cold out of you." She lead us down the hallway, pushing Riku into a room on one side on the hallway, and pushing me into a later one on the other side.

I turned on the water and peeled off my wet clothes, treating the jacket lovingly. Until, of course, I saw the word Strife written in permanent marker on the tag. Then I just left it in the same corner with the rest of my clothes. I'd only just pulled the curtain closed across the bathtub when Aerith walked in. She laughed.

"I think Riku and I both wish he'd thought to do that!"

'_Why didn't you think to knock?_' I wondered

"Anyway, I just came in to bring you some towels and a change of clothes."

"Aerith."

"Yes?"

" . . .He knows."

"Ah."

" . . ."

"Well, geez, are you sure it's Amaya back there, or did Leon somehow sneak into that tub?"

I smiled. "He took it well."

"I'm glad," she answered. That's Aerith's way of saying, "I told you so."

" . . .Thank you."

"Don't worry about it, Amaya." She paused just before opening the door. "I mean that." She left and closed the door behind her. I sank chin-deep into the blissfully warm water and firmly ordered myself not to think for the next half-hour.

* * *

Review Shout-outs

Riku of Darkness: I'll just respond to both reviews here, since you were kind enough to review both chapters. I'm so glad you like the fic, though I don't know what I've done to deserve all the praise . . .ah, well, mine is not to question. At least, not to question compliments. Hopefully this lived up to your expectations . . .I'm beginning to wonder what I'd do without all your support.

Ice Dagger: Yes, the jacket would drown us, wouldn't it? ;) Anyway, I'm glad you like Riku . . .I think a lot of people forget that he is only fifteen. Either that, or there are a lot of people that are more mature than I was at fifteen.

Tiger Kiss: Was this soon enough?

PussycatDoll101: I know, I'm crying too! Every time I hear a release date, they say "Just kidding! Wait a few more months!" Now, I've found two websites that say March 1, but my local EB Games said May 2. ;;

Sorasbro13: Thank you for reviewing, even though you didn't particularly like the fic. It means a lot to me that you bothered to read it all the way through, and managed to say something critical without being rude. I'm probably wasting space responding (since you probably didn't come back), but I thought I'd give a shout-out just in case:)


	17. Toast?

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me, except Amaya, the Dark Summon and his world, and the story line that my diseased brain has deemed worthy to inflict upon you. If you sue, all you'll get is half a cup of ramen and a squished jellybean.

A/N: Well, all and all not a bad response for Chapter 16 . . .I was going to write it out completely, but since my beta had read that chapter about six months before any of the rest of the story got written, she seemed rather peeved when I suggested it. Go figure.

**Chapter 17**

_Help me . . ._

What?

_Help me . . ._

Who are you?

_**Help us . . .**_

The king with his dark hair looked at me with his tragic eyes. Begging for understanding, begging for forgiveness. I stopped breathing when I looked in those eyes. There was a deep kindness, almost a love, in his eyes that I had not seen during the dream. _Forgive me . . .please forgive me . . ._

I closed my eyes when I felt a hand brush against my face, but when I opened them, it was no longer the king of light, but my father looking down at my face. His eyes had always been a golden color. Lion Eyes, people had called him when he was younger. And I almost started crying when I saw him look at me, because he was seeing only me. Just me. Not looking past me, not seeing Mama or Kairi, or anyone but me. _I'm so sorry . . .you are too much like me .May you not share my sorrow . . ._

I wanted to ask him so many things, to tell him so many things, but before I could, he melted away into that other figure. The one whose face is forever burned into my memory, rolling about on the temple floor. _May you not share my sorrow . . .Stop me before I cause more sorrow . . .Those that were there . . .Bring them here . . ._

I woke, and found the stone glowing, clasped in my hands, the chain slipping through my fingers. I cried out and flung it far from me.

"Amaya?" Kairi asked sleepily, but I was already on the floor, picking up the stone.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have thrown you. I'm sorry."

"Um . . .Amaya? You're talking to a rock. A rock that's already made you have some sort of kooky dream. Are you sure there's not sort of . . .damage?"

I turned to her, the stone once again clasped in my fist, "Let's get everyone together. We need to talk."

* * *

"So let me get this straight," Leon rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Together, the people in this stone are responsible for the separation of the worlds, and the slow destruction of them. And we want to . . .help them?"

"Yeah, this is sounding kind of backwards, Amaya," Sora said around a piece of toast. "Here, Aerith, have some toast." He offered her his second slice. When her nearly comatose body didn't respond, Cloud reached around her to accept the toast. He tried to put it in her mouth for her, only to have it hang in her mouth, unchewed. He rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to Amaya.

"Everyone deserves a chance at salvation?"

She nodded, "That's right. They're stuck in their own cycles of anger and loneliness and they need our help to end the cycle."

"But who were the ones that were there? And where are we bringing them?" I asked, having finally abandoned the bedspread and looking more like a human being than a burrito.

"Are they the ones in the stone?" Yuffie asked, helping herself to some raspberry jam.

"Hmm . . .somehow I think it has to be more than bringing the stone somewhere . . ."

"Those in the stone cannot rest until the balance is restored." Merlin spoke.

We all took a double take, "How did you get here?"

He shrugged and grabbed himself one of Yuffie's pieces of toast with jam. "Mm, raspberry. In any case, that is what they want, correct? So I would guess that you need not only the stone, but also the ones meant to restore the balance—representatives for them."

"It looks like I'm back on the case!" Sora announced a little too cheerfully, taking a long drink of his juice.

"Not only you, Sora. While you are the keyblade master, you are a representative of one side only." He moved over to Riku and put a hand on his shoulder. "He must go as well, to represent the darkness."

He pushed his hand aside, "That's not who I am anymore."

He shook his head, "That is who you are and always will be, Riku. Remember when we spoke? The darkness is not inherently bad, nor is the light inherently good. Instead, it is the balance between the two that creates goodness."

"What about Ansem? How do we get a representative for him?" I asked.

"Well, Amaya's his daughter, right? I mean, it's okay to talk about that, right?" Yuffie said, uncertainly.

"Either way, you've said it now," Cloud rolled his eyes again. Aerith still sat there with the toast have in and half out of her mouth. He tore it off and took the rest of it for himself. "She could do it."

"But that leaves us dark-heavy." Merlin thought aloud. "Perhaps Kairi ought to go to balance that out. Especially since she was the Princess of Heart for Hollow Bastion, and so can double as a representative of Ansem."

I just wanted to hug the old man right then. Thank you. Thank you for not letting him leave me behind again.

"Alright, then the party is decided." Leon said, "Sora, Riku, Amaya, and Kairi."

"But where are we going?" Riku asked.

" . . . . ."

"The Heart of Worlds, I would imagine. If the worlds all began as one, that must be the place where the original world stood in space."

"And this time . . .things will be the way they are supposed to be?"

"Well, yes. But they won't be the way they were. We should be reconnected as one big world again. It will be a big change, but everyone should be restored."

I took a shuddering breath. " . . .Okay then."

"Well, no huge hurry." Leon said from his spot on the wall. We all turned and stared at him. He raised an eyebrow, "Well, I'm not saying put it off forever, but you can finish your toast first." But contrary to that statement, he immediately left the room. A few minutes the front door opened and closed again. Yuffie started to get up, but Cloud put a hand on her arm.

"Leave him." She looked like she wanted to say something, but she obediently sat back down.

" . . .It's been a long time, huh?"

Cloud nodded. I felt out of the loop, but figured if it was a place that his friends wouldn't go, trying to go there myself would get me decapitated. For now, I just had to think about my own problems. I was going, this time. And I wasn't going to be a burden.

* * *

The cool air on my face was a welcome reprieve from the warm kitchen I'd left behind, the darkness a respite from the too-bright morning above. I took out my gunblade and started practicing various swings, imagining Heartless around me. But instead of banishing my thoughts like the exercise normally did, it made them louder.

Again. I was useless again. I was sending a bunch of kids to do a job that grown men would be terrified to do, and I couldn't even help them. Because the keyblade hadn't come to me; it had come to a kid, too young to even swing it properly.

Come to that, why the hell was I even practicing? If everything went according to plan, the Heartless would no longer exist. There would be nothing left to fight. I couldn't even remember what I'd wanted to do before I'd been thrust into being the unofficial leader of this town. Once this town was gone, I'd be useless again.

Swing. Slash. Swipe.

No matter how many times I swung, more kept coming. The crowds were so thick, it was hard to tell how many of these things there really were, or where they were coming from. Then the pressure at my back disappeared.

I turned in panic only to see her fading as she fell, until there was no body remaining to hit the ground. There'd just been a look of shock on her face, blood running down her temple, looking at me. _Why did this happen? Why didn't you save me?_

I threw my gunblade down on the ground and sat on a convenient rock. I buried my face in my hands and tried to remember how to breathe. Would she be back? Would they all be back and together again? Would they all hate me, for not saving them, for letting them die? Would they think that those that had lived had been more important to me? They hadn't been. Squall Leonhart didn't call anyone a friend, not out loud anyway. But, no matter how much they had heard my sharp sarcasm, they'd been important to me. As much as it killed me to admit it even now, they'd been important. They'd mattered. And I'd mattered to them. If they all came back . . .would they even know who I was anymore? Would they be able to understand Leon?

Because the things that made Squall and Leon different were more than the way they spelled their names. Squall was already reticent and taciturn—Leon was a stone wall. Squall had been a teenager, still in school, with hardly a care in the world. Leon had an entire city to care for, and a long list of people he'd failed. Squall was 17. Leon was 26. Leon should have been stronger and smarter than Squall, but he wasn't.

And even if they all did come back, and even if they didn't hold it against us that we hadn't saved them, they would still be back in that world. They would want to go back to being happy-go-lucky teenagers again. I hadn't been very good at that the first time; it was going to be impossible to do it now. For Aerith and Cloud, too, things would be different, though they had each other. Even Yuffie, I think, would have trouble adjusting to having people her own age around, people who had never known what it was like to lose everything and still, somehow, be alive. She may act more carefree than the rest of us, and in a way she is, but she's still seen too much for someone her age. For someone her age . . .I wanted to laugh. She was the same age now as we had been back then.

Rinoa would be that age if she came back. She'd still be 17 years old, looking forward to prom, still wanting to talk on the phone with Tifa and Aerith for hours and hours, still wanting to have sleepover parties and still wanting a boyfriend who expected a girl to be this way. Instead she'd be coming back to . . .

Me. What was left of me. I guess I just kept thinking that when the worlds were restored, everything would be fine, but it won't be that easy. Even if Rinoa is just the way I left her, I'm not just the way she left me. And I can't go back to being that boy again. My morning alarm beeped on my watch, and as I turned my wrist to turn it off I laughed.

I had a date with Samantha in 12 hours.

* * *

**Review Responses**

Pussycatdoll101: Why can't they make up their minds? Because I say so, that's why. (Grins cheekily)

Riku of Darkness: I'm glad you liked the chapter. Honestly, this story has grown so far beyond my original plans that the chapter almost didn't fit, so I was pretty worried.

Idiotchobo: High praise indeed, thank you very much! D

sorasbro13: Oh, really? I must have misunderstood your review. Thanks! (Reads further) Really? Well, what do you say, Amaya? Amaya: (Blushes 17 shades of red) Um . . .uh . . . A28: The decision is, unfortunately, left out of her hands since, as far as I know, the world of Kingdom Hearts does not have telephones. Amaya: (Blush fades just a tad) Oh . . .right . . .


	18. Goodbyes

Disclaimer: Don't own anything. Well, I do own some stuff, but not anything that anyone's really interested in.

**Chapter 18**

"Are we . . .really going to do this?"

"It's what you wanted, isn't it?" Riku stepped up behind me and put his arms around my waist. I blushed furiously, wondering how I still had time to be embarrassed about displays of affection when we were all running toward what was, if not certain, than at least probable death.

"Yeah, but . . ." I turned, "I'm a little scared."

"Hey . . .it'll be alright," he tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear. "The first time I went to the Heart of Worlds, I thought it was all over. But I woke up and found you," he smiled, "If something that great happened to me the first time, I have a hard time believing it'll screw us over this time."

I leaned my head against his shoulder, " . . .I hope you're right."

* * *

"This time, we'll all be together. All of us."

"Yeah." He fiddled with the metal claw that he still kept on his arm.

"You've . . .really missed him, haven't you?"

"He was my best friend," he deadpanned. That's one thing I've learned about Cloud over the time we've been together; the more emotional he's getting, the more calm his voice gets.

"He won't hold it against you, you know. And, as angry as you are at him," I sat next to him on the bed and pulled him into my arms, "You know I've been thanking him every single day, for helping you get back to me."

He sighed against my shoulder, "He died so I could get out of there."

"And you did the best you could to honor his wishes, didn't you? You lived. You came back. And now we'll all be together again, and you can finally give him back his things."

Cloud laughed a little, "Yeah, but . . .geez Aerith . . ." he pulled up the ripped edges of the cloak for us both to see, "You think he'll be mad that I haven't taken it to the dry cleaners?"

We both started laughing harder than we've laughed in a long, long time.

* * *

I looked down on Second District from my usual place on the roof of the Gizmo Shop. Going back to Hollow Bastion, huh? What did I care?

I mean, don't get me wrong, the Heartless are a royal pain in the you-know-where, but I've lived in Traverse since I was nine years old. Hollow Bastion, at least, the way it was, seems almost like an imaginary place to me. Like a vacation your parents took you on a really long time ago, a place that existed outside normal space. I know people think that I don't think about this stuff, and mostly they're right.

I don't like to spend time brooding like Squall or Leon or Bob or whatever he's calling himself nowadays. And I remember the years and years of seeing Aerith's sad smiles when she tried to get along without Cloud, and I swore I'd never be sad like that. Even now that Cloud came back, and they're both so happy it just makes you want to do those little high-pitched happy-squeals, you can still see how sad and guilty Cloud is all the time. Guilty for what, I'm not sure. For living? For not getting here soon enough? For something else? I don't know, and there's a mean part of me that doesn't care. Life's too short to waste time being guilty about things you can't change.

And life's too short to worry about what's going to happen after the door's opened again. I got up and brushed off my butt. _This ninja's going to go get some ice cream._

* * *

"Hey Sora?"

"Yeah, what's up?"

"I'm coming with you this time, you know."

"Yeah. What's the matter? Do you not want to go?"

"No!" I almost shouted. "I wanted to come last time, and I want to come this time. It's just that . . .um . . .I'm not such a great fighter you know? I don't want to let you down."

"Don't worry about it. I'll protect you."

"But I—I like that you protect me, Sora, but I want to do something for myself, you know?"

He scratched his head, "Well, yeah, but . . ." he grinned, "You coulda started yourself off a little slower than this. And really . . ." He rested his hand on her shoulder, "You're helping us out just by being there. The door won't open without you there, right?"

"Yeah, I guess."

We just sat together in companionable silence for a while.

"Hey, Sora?"

"Yeah?"

"Last time . . .we almost lost each other at the end of it. I don't want to lose you again."

"Well then . . .let's promise."

* * *

"Promise?" I asked him.

"Yeah," he brushed my brown hair out of my face, "I'll be there."

* * *

"So just reach out your hand," he held my hand in his, "And I'll catch you."

* * *

"And if we fall, we'll fall together."

* * *

He was surprised when the pasta arrived; while they'd been waiting, he had completely forgotten what he'd ordered. A combination of sleep deprivation and trying so hard to concentrate on what she was saying, instead of what his own personal demons were telling him.

"So, once I'd been working at the Sunglass Hut for a little while, I could get myself an apartment in Second District! I have to share with a roommate, but she's really sweet. We get along great, except for that we both hate to do dishes, so we keep trying to pass it off onto each other. Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb . . ."

_She won't love you anymore when she comes back. She'll hate you. She'll hate you for letting her lose her heart._

"The moogles across the street are really nice, too! Aren't they cute? One of them kind of got annoyed at me for staring at its pom-pom, but doesn't it look like a little cat toy plunked on top of its head? Rhubarb, rhubarb . . ."

_They'll all hate you. Zell, Seifer, Vincent, Tifa, Rinoa. Mom and Dad. Ellone and Marlene. They'll all hate you._

"So how old are you, anyway, Leon?"

"Huh?" he looked at Samantha in surprise.

She rolled her eyes, "Don't worry, I'm twenty, so I'm legal. I was just wondering."

"Oh. Twenty . . .six. Twenty-six."

She grinned sardonically, "It took a while for you to think of that one, huh?"

He shrugged, "I don't know. Guess it's not something I think about all the time, you know? Once you're legal to drink, you kinda stop counting. I actually forgot my birthday last year."

"You forgot your own birthday?" She giggled against her straw, taking a long drink of her cola. "I can't even image doing that!"

"Yeah. Neither can I." He answered. He frowned when he realized that didn't make any sense, but Samantha just laughed.

"Don't worry, I get what you mean," she put her hand over his. "I am surprised, though, to hear twenty-six."

He raised his eyebrows, "How old did you think I was?"

"Ah!" She waved her hands, "That's not what I meant! Ohhh, I'm so tactless! All I meant was . . .you look young, but you're basically in charge of the whole town! I guess . . .I guess I figured you had to be older than you looked. But you're not."

"Are you disappointed?"

"No. I'm glad."

Leon more or less kept the angry voices at bay for the rest of dinner. And dessert. And the walk back to her apartment.

"Well, um, I guess we better say goodnight . . ." She stood there, shyly, holding his hand the way she had since they'd gotten up from the table.

"Uh, yeah, this is your apartment building, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Which one's yours?"

She looked behind them and pointed to a lit window, near the far corner of the third floor. "Right there. My roommate's waiting up for me."

They both stood in front of the building for a few more minutes. Leon knew he was supposed to kiss her, but he was feeling like the world's biggest dork right about now. Hyne, I haven't worried about any of this stuff since I was a teenager! Am I just supposed to kiss her? Am I supposed to say something first? What do I say? What am I freaking out about? It's just a stupid 'goodnight' kiss!

As it was, Samantha took it out of his hands when she stood on her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

She walked back into her apartment. Leon stood outside on the sidewalk for a little while. Then he turned and walked back toward Third District.

* * *

A/N: Hee hee, that first scene scared you a little, didn't it? I didn't even realize whatit sounded like until my beta started looking it over! Hee hee, I'm such a dork. P

Review Responses:

DarkRiku14: I'm so glad you like it! The next chapter should come fairly soon!

Kartoonz: Thank you for the compliment! I know that it isn't conventional to make the girl older than the guy, but I liked the idea of Amaya being a little older at the destruction of Hollow Bastion.

Pussycatdoll101? "Why" what? I'm confused (though that happens easily).

Idiotichobo: Thank you so much! I'll try my best.


	19. Beginning of the End

A/N: Goodness, I almost broke my New Year's Resolution already! No, I did make it before the 1-month deadline! I'm still here!

Disclaimer: Don't own anything. You think that disclaimer's lame, check out my chapter title.

**Chapter 19**

"Whoa, whoa, wait just a minute. Time-out. You want me to send my baby with these four?"

"That's just about the size of it," Yuffie answered, not at all thrown by Cid's emotional outburst.

"No. I don't think so. No way!"

"Cid. It's for the restoration of the worlds," Cloud tried to reason.

"It's my ship, and I'm not letting some little kids drive it around interspace!"

"Hey!" Sora protested, "I went around in a gummi ship before, and nothing bad happened!"

"That was not my gummi ship, and it was actually the little feathered fella who was driving, wasn't it? You kids'll just crash it!"

"Will not!" Sora argued.

"Nobody drives this baby but me. And if I were going to hand it over, I wouldn't hand it to a bunch of kids too young to have driver's licenses!"

"Amaya's old enough to have a driver's license." Kairi pointed out.

"I don't think that's the point, Kairi," Riku muttered. Aerith stepped forward.

"Cid. These four have to get to the Heart of Worlds. Otherwise, all the worlds will eventually disappear. It won't be today, and it won't be tomorrow, but eventually, everything is going to fall if they don't bring things back to normal." She squeezed his hand, "We need your help."

Aerith's magic works like a charm. How she does it, I'll never know, but none of us can say 'no' when she asks like that.

"Fine. We'll use my ship. But I'm flying it!"

"Um . . .that's probably not a good idea."

"Wha?"

"Well, it's just that . . ." Amaya was nervous. Can't really blame her, since she'd never been on the receiving side of one of Cid's tirades. I don't know if the two ever even met before now. . .I'd only known him because he'd been Zell's boss. "The reason all this started was because of an imbalance between dark and light forces. So when we approach the door, we have to do so in a balanced way. We have two light people," she pointed at Sora and Kairi, "And two dark people." She pointed at herself and Riku. "We have two male, and two female. We have water," she pointed to herself, "Earth," she pointed to Riku, "Wind," She pointed to Sora, "And fire." She pointed to Kairi.

"If we add another person, we could lose the only opportunity we have. We can't take that chance," I said from my usual spot in the corner.

"Hmph!" Cid paced the room, making frustrated noises back in his throat.

He finally stopped and looked at us, defeated, "Do any of you even know how to drive one of these?"

"Teach us," Riku answered.

"And don't worry. Even if we do crash it, it won't matter, 'cause once the worlds are restored the way they're supposed to be, you won't even need gummi ships anymore!" Sora proclaimed cheerfully.

Cid ran a hand over his face, "That's real reassuring, kid."

* * *

"How you kids doing up there?" Cid's voice crackled through the radio.

"All good here!" Sora answered.

"Ready to go!" Kairi said, buckling her safety belt.

"Amaya, secure and ready."

"We're all ready for take-off Cid," Riku answered, slipping his hand off his armrest to grasp mine. He smiled at me reassuringly. I tried to reciprocate.

"Now the coordinates are already logged in, so it should get you there just fine on auto-pilot. Do you know how to take it off auto-pilot if you run into any Heartless in Interspace?"

"Sure," Riku answered. "Just hit the manual button and blast 'em away."

"Where is the manual button?"

Riku rolled his eyes good-naturedly, "The green button on my right."

"No! It's on your le . . .oh, wait, it is the right. Okay. Alright, that's good. And you already know how to use the weapons?"

"I was gunner all the time on Mickey's gummi," Sora almost bounced in his seat, "I can handle anything they throw at us."

"And to turn it back on to auto-pilot?"

"The blue button right above the manual button."

"Good kids. If anything happens, we should have radio contact all the way until you get into the Heart of Worlds' atmosphere. For whatever reason, we get some kind of weird interference. But up until then, anything happens, you contact me, got it?"

"Yeah, yeah, let us out already!"

"Okay, okay," Cid wasn't used to being the one in the control tower, but he knew how to run one, so without further ado, the countdown began and the heavy, air-tight doors to interspace creaked open.

" . . .4 . . .3 . . .2 . . .1 . . ."

The force threw my head back into the seat, and I knew I must have been hurting Riku with how hard I was gripping his hand. Once we were actually into space I relaxed my grip and looked over at Riku sheepishly. "Sorry."

"It's okay," he rubbed his thumb over my knuckles. "I'm just glad you don't wear rings."

"We are gonna have two more fast parts like that, though," Sora craned his head around Riku to look at me, "This route's got us going through two warp gates. And it's a little weird entering the atmosphere, too."

"Well, if it's the fastest way to get there, it's the smartest way to go."

Riku gave my hand another squeeze, "You'll be fine."

I smiled, for real this time, "I know."

The stone pulsed where it sat on my collarbone. _I'm coming,_ I tried to say. _Whatever it is that's trapped you, Papa, we're coming to help._

We came through the second warp gate and saw what looked like clouds and stars, or maybe clouds of stars, all swirling around each other in a way that made me dizzy.

"Is that . . .?"

"Yeah. That's what the Heart of Worlds looks like on the outside," Sora answered.

"Beginning landing sequence." The autopilot's voice announced. I was surprised it wasn't Cid's voice; he'd called us every ten minutes for the first two hours. The gummi started jostling and I grabbed on to my arm rests.

* * *

"We're just going through the atmosphere," I could hear Riku saying to Amaya. I chanced a glance at her. Apparently, she didn't do to well on gummis. Well, if we did what we were supposed to do here, it shouldn't be a problem for her anymore.

With a little bit of a bump, the gummi managed to land on a tiny piece of rock, standing out of an ocean.

We all climbed out of the craft, trying not to look at the women Cid had painted on the outside.

"How do we cross this?" I asked, curious. There wasn't a boat in sight.

"You can walk on it," Sora smiled and stepped right into the ocean . . .and didn't sink. He stomped around a little for good measure.

"See? It looks like it goes on forever, but its only about two inches deep."

"Like Hollow Bastion," Riku said, following Sora out onto the water, with Amaya and I not far behind.

"What is that material under there?" Amaya bent, wetting the knees of her jeans.

"I don't think this is the time to do research, Amaya," Riku rolled his eyes and pulled her back to her feet, "Besides, what are you going to do? Write a term paper on it? This place will disappear once we've done what we need to do."

"Oh, right. Right." We all started walking forward, but Amaya kept looking at everything like she just wanted to pick it all up and take it to her secret laboratory. And yes, she does look like the kind of person who has a secret laboratory.

Not that the rest of us were much better. Sora was a little less star-struck than us, since he'd been here before, but Riku, who'd only seen the other side of the door, and I, who'd only transported here at the last second before things started falling apart, just about had our eyes popping out of our heads. Even though I knew this place was dangerous, and that it only existed because everything else was dieing, it made me sad that a place so beautiful would be gone tomorrow.

Like a shooting star. Everyone says shooting stars are pretty, shooting stars are lucky, but they're really something burning up, dieing, and if it doesn't die in the air, it'll fall and kill a lot of things on the ground. This place wasn't right, but that didn't stop it from being beautiful.

"Kairi, watch out!"

"Huh?"

Sora dived and rolled, getting us both several feet away from what looked like a ring of flames. Then they condensed and turned into some kind of Heartless with a huge sword. I gasped. A Heartless had been right above me and I hadn't even seen it!

"Stay here," Sora said, and started to run toward the thing. Then he looked back, "Unless something comes over here. Then move." I just nodded dumbly and watched him and Riku take turns slashing at it. I saw Amaya standing off to one side, and thought that Riku had told her to stay out of trouble, too, until I saw her make a gesture and the thing's arm caught on fire, making it drop its sword. My eyes must have bugged out. Amaya was a mage.

And as I sat on the side, I was scared. Call me a wimp if you want, but I was scared, and I think any person that doesn't know magic and has no weapon to call her own has every right to be scared of something that's about eight feet tall that happens to be carrying a six-foot tall sword. So yeah, I was scared, and feeling ridiculously helpless. I'm going to tell you, in case you don't know; helpless isn't cute. Helpless is extremely frustrating, and, if I haven't mentioned it before, very frightening. As soon as we get out of this place, I'm going to get a gun license.

Together, the three of them took it down, and it disappeared into a sparkly cloud that melded in with the clouds in the sky and the strange rocks under our feet.

"You okay?" Sora came over to get me, sweating and triumphant.

"Yeah . . ." I let him pull me up from where I'd been half-lying on the ground, "But I'm really sick of not knowing how to fight."

"Well, then, how about you be our lookout? Watch our backs, you know?"

"Sure thing," I tried to sound enthusiastic. He was just brushing me off. Not that I could blame him; if I were him, I'd brush me off.

"Now, you're gonna wanna watch out for those flame-things. And the bubbles! Don't step into bubbles."

"Okay," we all kept walking, until Riku abruptly stopped and rubbed his nose. He felt out in front of him. "There's a wall here. Like an invisible wall."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot about those," Sora said nonchalantly, "Just keep a hand on it, and we can figure out which way we need to go. But be careful about the bubbles! And if you see anything on the ground, don't pick it up."

"Alright," Amaya agreed, gingerly placing her hand to her side, and watching it stop when her arm was half-extended. We all put our hands on the wall and started following Sora, even though he was just feeling his way around the same way we were.

"I don't know what's coming next," Sora admitted, "Last time I had to fight through mini-versions of all the worlds I'd locked. I don't know if I'll have to do that again, or if it'll skip us to the end. Or if it'll throw something different at us."

"So just be ready, huh?" Riku said.

"Yup."

"Great."

Be ready did not even begin to cover it.

* * *

**Review Responses**

Idiotichobo: Symbolism? Huh. I love it when people think I'm deep and I'm not . . .j/k. ;) Thank you for the review.

Riku of Darkness: Oh, thank goodness you're still here. I was sure I scared everyone off with chapter 16. Should I write it out, do you think? Hope to see you back at this chapter!

JenniferKay1: Hey there! Yeah, go ahead and email me--my email's right on the bio page.

Kosa-kun: Welcome aboard! Glad you like the story:)


	20. The Darkness and the Light

A/N: Hey guys! It's been a long haul, but we're closing in on the ending. I'm thinking probably two more chapters after this. I stick by my April deadline, though!

Disclaimer: If you honestly can't tell what I own and what I don't by chapter twenty, you're in sad shape and probably need to get some psychiatric help. And possibly rehab.

**The Darkness and the Light**

" . . .No _way_ . . ."

I laughed, a high-pitched, scared-out-of-my-mind, I-think-I'm-going-to-be-sick kind of laugh, "Way."

Okay, let's be clear, I'm no chicken. I've fought a lot of Heartless before. But this was more than a lot. This was an army.

It put the world's biggest mosh pit to shame. It was like an entire ocean of bodies, filled with glowing eyes and grasping claws, stretched out in all directions around the tiny spit of land that we'd ended up on. And that was just the Shadows.

Beyond them were all the real bad boys, the Dark Balls, Defenders, and Behemoths. And a black mass, which I had first thought were clouds, turned out to be wave after wave of Gargoyles, Wyverns, Invisibles and Angel Stars, so many that they blocked out the sky. There was a minute where everything seemed to hold its breath.

Then the Heartless remembered that they were supposed to be attacking.

Riku, Amaya and I sort of formed a small circle around Kairi, me with the Keyblade, Riku with a sword, and Amaya with her magic.

"Any ideas?" Riku called from my left.

"Well, I'd say just barreling through is out of the question."

"You think?" Amaya snapped from my right.

"Getting mad isn't going to help," Riku said to her. "What we need is a plan. What can kill a bunch of stuff at once?"

" . . .Amaya!" Riku called out, "That thing! That thing you did on your world? Could you do it again?"

"Riku!" she shouted angrily.

"What did you do on your world?" I asked, taking out another Shadow.

"It doesn't matter!" She took down a Wyvern with a gravity spell. "I can't do it again. And besides, it's a darkness-based spell. Who's to say it would work against these guys, anyway?"

"You _can_ do it again!"

"I _can't_!"

"Riku! Amaya! Now is not the time to be fighting with each other!" Kairi said a little shrilly. Riku and Amaya both fell silent, but it felt a little like being stuck inside a thunderhead.

"We still need a plan, guys!" I shouted at the two of them.

"Working on it!" Amaya shouted back impatiently, her face a sickly purple because of the glowing jewel still resting in the hollow of her throat.

The Invisible I was fighting suddenly dive-bombed at me. I raised my arm to shield myself, but the blow never came. Instead, it fell straight into the ground, spreading itself into a thick, black pool. As if that had been some sort of cue, all the other Heartless began to do the same thing. Wherever they were, whatever they were doing, they stopped and sank into the ground.

"What are they doing?" Amaya's whisper sounded weird, when we'd been yelling not just thirty seconds ago.

"I've only seen Shadows so this before, and that's to avoid a hit. They never did it all together like this," I answered.

"You're right. Other Heartless can do this, but they normally don't—the other kinds are so much stronger than the Shadows that they don't bother with those sorts of tactics. And they're not trying to avoid us."

Kairi scooted a little closer. "Watch out," I told her, "You get to close, my arm might hit you when I swing." She looked at me, almost pleadingly, but let go of my sleeve and miserably inched back to the center of our circle.

"I really don't like not having a weapon."

I thought Amaya might have looked back at Kairi pityingly, but I was more concerned watching the shadows on the floor. All the individual pools of shadows were merging into one big one. But then, a spear of light, so bright and hot it made us all wince, jutted out of the floor, about a football field away. The Heartless shrieked, the first noise I'd ever heard a Heartless make, and let me tell you, it made me glad that they were usually silent. It was the kind of sound that sends shivers up your spine, makes your hair stand on end, makes you want to cover your ears. But what we were watching was worse.

The pool began moving, trying to free itself from the spear of light, and others, that kept appearing in their midst. Trying, still, to get away, the Heartless started rising back up out of the floor. Not into their Heartless forms, but into a giant dark wave.

"Go! Move! Go!" Riku shoved Kairi and me one direction as he and Amaya took off the other way. The dark wave crashed down between us, spraying drops everywhere, just like a real ocean would. Only, unlike a real ocean, the drops actively crawled to get back to the larger darkness. Yech.

"You guys okay?" I called over, keeping Kairi close to me as we watched the blackness run between us and our friends, like a flooding river between two islands.

"We're fine," Riku called back, "You?"

"We're okay!" Kairi called back.

"Well, what now?"

"I don't know!" I looked around. "I mean, there's no way out of here, not that I see. An' I really don't want to mess with that," I pointed the Keyblade at the shadows between us. Suddenly, the river doubled in size.

"Whoa!" I jumped back.

We hadn't noticed at first, because the 'Heartless River' had flowed so far into the distance. But it had actually turned, to create a huge circle around Riku and Amaya. We only noticed it when it started making its second loop, widening the gap between us. And making the island they stood on much smaller.

"Riku!"

"Sora!" Kairi screamed, pointing the other direction. The spears of light had concentrated into one nearly blinding mass, and it was hurdling toward us. Way too fast. I grabbed Kairi and managed to roll us both out of its path, letting it go flying past. I took a look to the other side of the river, only to see that it had made another circle, and Riku and Amaya were practically standing on each other to avoid the flowing darkness.

"Guys, hold on! I'm—" I didn't know exactly what I was going to do, but they never heard the hesitation, anyway. Because that was when the light hit.

* * *

My heart stopped. I know it sounds cliché, but it really felt like it did, when I saw that light turn itself around and come rushing at them like some sort of mad comet. Like a shooting star. And then it hit. 

I couldn't stop the scream from ripping out of my lungs. They were gone. They were_ gone_. I'd had to shut my eyes against the bright burst of light, but I'd seen it hit, I'd seen the explosion. They were gone.

When I finally reopened my eyes, there was nothing to see. No bodies. Nothing. Just the blinding white light, covering the floor, glowing with a terrible purity. Completely vaporized. Tears were already running down my face, and I could see them pouring from Riku's eyes as well. For just a moment, we didn't even think about what was going to happen to us when the dark river made one more turn. We were just thinking of our friends. His friends. My baby sister and her boyfriend. Gone. Then something moved, as we kneeled together, crying.

At first I thought it was some new sort of Heartless, since it seemed to come straight out of the ground. Then I realized it had been there the whole time; we hadn't seen it because it was the same color of the glowing ground it had been lying on. It stood, and turned to us, while another stood up behind it. I heard Riku make a sort of strangled choking sound.

Their bodies, their clothing, their hair were entirely white, shimmering and eerie. Their eyes were a glowing blue, light and pupilless. But these eyes gave you no idea that they were blind, because when they saw the river before them, they very clearly glared at it. The girl's lips curled into a snarl.

Once it became clear that they weren't going to attack us, at least not while we were on this side of the river, I took some more time to look. They were tall, that much was clear even from this distance. It was clearly a man and a woman, but it was difficult to make out their features. At one moment, the woman looked like a goddess; beautiful, unattainable, and, when she turned her eyes back to us, terrifyingly powerful. But I thought, if I looked, I might have seen a little chubbiness in those cheeks, a childish widening of her eyes. But then it was gone again, and the statuesque goddess remained. The man, too, for a moment seemed to have long, flowing waves one moment, and wild, spiked hair the next. He was definitely a grown man, but, for some inexplicable reason, an arm or leg would seem youthfully gangly for a moment, before returning to its muscular, strong self.

"It's them," I breathed.

"Sora?" Riku almost whispered.

The thing turned its eyes back on us. We noticed too late that the river had made another turn. We quickly stood, and I looked in panic at the shadows lapping at my shoes. I felt the shadow (do shadows have shadows?) before I saw it—a huge wave had risen up behind us. Riku grabbed me and held me against his chest.

"If we fall . . ."

"We fall together."

_I'm not afraid of the darkness._

* * *

**Review Responses**

1blondegamer: Glad to have ya! I've tried very hard to make Amaya your not-so-typical OC, so I'm glad you found that to be true!

Idiotichobo: Final battle's coming soon, I promise:) Thanks for the review

Kosa-kun: Hope I lived up to your expectations!


	21. The Darkness and Light Without

A/N: The showdown between Light and Darkness . . .here we go . . .(crosses self) Eesh long, this chapter . . .

Disclaimer: Still don't own it. Just like the last twenty times I told you. I swear, next time I'm just putting one on Chapter 1 and considering myself done . . .Not like anyone believes that I own Riku anyway . . .(darn it)

**Chapter 21**

_I'm not afraid of the darkness._

All I could sense for a long time was the darkness. It felt familiar, almost warm, to me. Like one more smoke months after you've quit. You know that it can't possibly be good for you, and that it's really bringing back a part of you that you've worked hard to get rid of. Strange how we love most the things that have the greatest power to harm us. Well, I have plenty of time to reminisce on that now, after the fact, but I wasn't wondering about the psychological and philosophical connotations of it at the time.

Instead I was just feeling it completely enveloping my senses. Imagine wrapping yourself in a thick, heavy quilt, and lying on the world's biggest, softest, most comfortable sofa, all wrapped up in a blanket, curled up, facing the back of the couch. Now imagine if all that was happening underwater, only the water wasn't wet, and it wasn't cold, and you didn't feel so desperate to breathe. Just imagine that everything is warm and comfortable, and you know in just a minute it's not going to be so comfortable anymore, because you're going to need to breathe, to move, to open your eyes, but for right now it's like you're being held in a tight hug from some friend or relative that you haven't seen in years. In a second, that hug is going to become too long for comfort, but for right now, it feels good to be hugged. It feels right. That's what being embraced by pure darkness is like.

I felt something tugging Amaya away and I loosened my hold on her. She didn't cling to me. She drifted away, into the darkness, and I couldn't bring myself to be worried about her. It was far too comfortable here for anything bad to happen. But it began to last too long. The blanket was too hot, but my arms wouldn't move to push it off. The hug lasted too long, and yet my embracer would not release me. I'd been under too long and I needed to _breathe_.

_A river,_ I vaguely remembered, _I can't breathe because I'm under a river._

And then I couldn't think anymore.

* * *

All I could sense for a long time was the light. I had only gotten glimpses of it before, quick flashes between the Keyblade and various doors I'd locked, visions of doors opening in my dreams, and the one time I'd seen the True Light, for just a second, before the Heartless completely covered it again.

It was like every nerve ending in my body, every cell in my brain, every feeling in my heart woke up all at the same time. I saw, heard, touched, smelled, tasted, thought, felt a million things, all so quickly that I couldn't even figure out what each thing was before another replaced it. It was a dizzying whirlwind of images and sounds, and thoughts that I was sure were mine while wondering how I could possibly be thinking all these things at once. It was invigorating and exhausting at the same time, and even as I told my senses to slow down, they continued going at the break-neck pace, whether I could keep up or not. I couldn't keep up. I couldn't shut my eyes, I couldn't cover my ears.

It all went white. And then I was gone.

* * *

If anyone could have looked on at the scene happening at the End of Worlds, they would have been bewildered. This huge, seemingly infinite, space was split into two halves; one side glowed with a purity that new fallen snow could not match; the other was drenched in a blackness that somehow managed to be as brilliant as the light before it. And on each of the sides stood two creatures, a man and woman.

Both sets were tall and noble, one was almost reminded of chess pieces with the way they matched each other. They were unlike chess pieces, however, insofar as that no one had been so impersonal as to chisel the same features into two different colors. The woman in white stood, sparks of light emitting from her long white hair, sparks almost seeming to emit from her pupilless eyes, a bow in her hands, shooting flaming arrows toward the darkness, opening her mouth in silent laughter when the shadows cringed from the brightness and heat of the flames. The woman in black narrowed her dark eyes and returned a volley in her own way; holding out a hand, she sent a stream of water flying into the side of the light. Her mouth turned up in a small smirk when the White Queen hissed, leaping to one side. The White Queen flickered like a flame. The Black Queen seemed almost to move without moving; her hair and clothing looked as though they were being pulled by a slow current, or perhaps like they were the current.

The two men were equally matched. The king in white swung his sword, and was creating terrible winds hurtling toward his opponent, but the king in black simply raised a hand, and the ground rose up around him to act as his shield. Similarly, when the Black King tried to send boulders and walls of earth toward the White King, the winds destroyed them before they got close. The White King's movements were quick, and unpredictable, the Black King never moved, beyond raising his hand.

The two sides battled for time uncounted, neither one ever gaining the upper hand. Until one of the four awoke.

* * *

_Accept the darkness and the light . . ._

_Princesses of Heart . . .the purest light . . ._

_The one who can wield the Keyblade . . ._

_Don't be afraid, and the darkness cannot conquer you . . ._

_I'm not afraid of the darkness!_

A small girl holding her hands on the ground, completely obliterating everything around her.

A small girl, hurtling through the sky, falling like a shooting star.

A boy, left alone in a strange place, a strange weapon in his hands.

A man, standing full of confidence as darkness came down upon him.

A boy, his eyes beginning to open.

* * *

I lost count of how long I'd been fighting. How many times I'd started fighting, and then gave up. How many times I'd wondered if I was only imagining it, and I'd never fought in the first place. How many times I wondered if I was just asleep and having a weird dream. But, if I was dreaming, I argued, it was time for me to wake up. So I did.

The light was blinding. I ducked and shielded my eyes behind my arm, and then realized that the light was only coming from the direction I was facing. I could look away. So I looked to the side, so that only the tail of my vision caught the light, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Then I realized what I was looking at.

Amaya, but not. The same way we could tell those light things were Sora and Kairi, this dark thing was Amaya. I could see it in the way she held her hand, her tiny little hand with its small fingers, out at Kairi, fighting. A wind started blowing through my hair I heard something rushing at me. Wait, if Amaya was fighting with Kairi, then I was fighting with . . .

A felt something hit me, and looked down at the freely-bleeding gash on my arm. No weapon. That guy was using a sword; he hadn't thrown something at me. Then I saw him swing the sword, and a sharp wind started up again. Air? He was hitting me with air? How the heck am I supposed to block that? I rolled quickly to one side.

When I looked back at Amaya, I saw something that I hadn't before. Not only was that stone glowing like a furnace, but there was something behind her. Something floating behind her. A man, I thought, with a brown hood over his face.

"Open yourself to the darkness. Become darkness itself!" I could hear him murmuring to her. If her appearance was any indication, she was trying her best to oblige.

"Amaya! Amaya!" She didn't respond at all. I grabbed her arm, "Amaya!"

She looked at me and, for the first time since we met, I think I understood what she meant about being capable of anything. I froze, with those dark eyes looking directly into mine. She held out her hand, and put it flat on my chest. Oh my God. She's going to kill me. She's actually going to kill me. But I couldn't move. Then, the eyes lightened to her own natural blue.

_We're the same . . ._

" . . .Riku?"

I nodded dumbly. She lowered her hand. "What . . .?"

"It's the—look out!" I quickly pulled her down and out of the way of another flaming arrow.

"We have to stop them!"

"Any ideas?" We dodged another one of Sora's attacks.

_"If eternal light is your idea of heaven, I choose hell!"_

_"Onward, my people, the eternal light shall be ours!"_

"It's the two from the stone!"

"What?"

"The king was fighting for a kingdom of eternal light. There was someone who got in the way, and the king had him executed." Another flaming arrow, "So he swore he would use his spirit to fight against the light with all his power. His anger turned him against the balance he once believed in and turned him toward darkness. They're just using us to fight their battle!"

I swore. Being used to do other people's dirty work was getting really old. First Ansem and now this—"You!"

There he was, standing calmly to one side of us, "Caused quite the commotion, haven't you?" Was all he answered.

"Caused quite the commotion? You're the one who started this whole mess! You're the one that opened up the worlds! You destroyed them! You tried to kill my friends! You tried to use me to do it!" I advanced on him. What I was going to do, I don't know exactly, since I seemed to have lost my weapon when the dark river fell on us. But I was ready to fight him however I could.

Ansem stood, calmly taking all my accusations, but dodged and caught my hands when I tried to sock him square in the jaw. "Fighting each other may not be the best option right now."

"She's your daughter! Your daughter, and you tried to use me to kill her!"

Amaya was saying something, but I wasn't listening. Ansem's face had gone incredibly sad. "I know."

"You know? That's all?"

"You wouldn't accept an apology, even if I offered one."

My mouth opened and shut again as I glared at him. But what could I say? No matter what he said, I wouldn't have forgiven him. I dropped my hands and settled for glaring.

He continued. "Believe me when I say that it was not entirely me, though I will take blame for what I did do. I was a scientist. I forgot that I was also a ruler, and a father, and for that, I cannot ask to be forgiven. But I am not wholly responsible for what followed, after Hollow Bastion was taken. The desire to see the heart of worlds was indeed mine, but the desire to destroy worlds was not. The League of Darkness was entirely his idea, not mine."

"So we're supposed to believe that you were being controlled?"

"Toward the end, I was hardly even present, in any sort of real sense. He used my image because his own was . . .unsettling, to say the least."

"What do you mean?"

"He looks the same as he did when he died."

Amaya gasped and put her hands over her mouth, "No wonder he keeps the hood up."

Ansem nodded, "You can imagine how the sight of a headless man might detract you from listening to what he says. Never mind that he shouldn't be able to speak at all, without a mouth."

"Never mind that, let's just—duck!" We all hit the deck, which I have to say looked pretty funny on Ansem. Amaya just continued as if nothing had happened. "Let's just find a way to stop them."

"How?"

"How did you stop me?"

"I just . . .said your name. And touched you." I grabbed her arm to show her, "I still thought you were going to kill me for a minute there, though. You looked like you were going to blow me to smithereens."

"How did you stop yourself?"

I shrugged. "I just woke up. I guess since I've been that deep in the darkness before, you know? I knew what it was and I knew I couldn't stay there."

"But they've never seen a light like that before . . ."

"There's got to be some way to reach them! I won't give up on them!"

Amaya touched my cheek, "I know you won't. And, somewhere in there, they know that, too. The trick's going to be reminding them."

"The eternal light and darkness, coexisting . . .you would think after all this time immersed in the darkness, I would understand the meaning of it. But still . . .why the light . . ." Ansem trailed off, once again lost in his own thoughts.

"We don't have time to think about that!" I yelled.

"He's right, Papa, we need to help them now!" Amaya almost begged.

He looked shocked, whether because we'd interrupted his train of thought or because she'd called him 'Papa', I don't know. "You're right," he finally answered. He looked at me, "I'm not sure how exactly you pulled yourself back out of the darkness, but you've always possessed a rare sort of self-awareness that does not allow you to be completely possessed by anything. Recall that even when the darkness possessed your body, it could not force you to kill your friends. That is probably what helped you retain yourself, and regain full consciousness. Your heart must have called to hers and reawakened it."

Amaya looked at me, and I swear she blushed. Ansem smiled in a way that seemed entirely foreign on his face. I swear he was about to tease her, and then give me a long list of rules to follow when dating his daughter. All while we're dodging blades of wind and flaming arrows, of course.

"So how do we call to them?"

Ansem frowned, "Well, they are your friends. But, then, they are on the side of light. They are spiritually opposed to you, and, as such, currently see you as opponents, not as allies. That could pose a problem."

"Yeah, we've kind of realized that," I snapped.

Ansem waved a hand as if my comments were both unnecessary and unimportant, "Perhaps thinking of memories, times you've had together, might help. Times before the destruction of your world, preferably, before the differences in you were clearly marked."

"It'll have to be you, Riku," Amaya said, "The only memories I share with Kairi are from before she went to Destiny Islands . . .she hardly even remembers Hollow Bastion. She was so young then. And I don't share any memories with Sora at all."

"Great," I ran a hand over my face. "Memories . . ." Have you ever tried thinking of something that should be totally obvious, but when you're trying to think of it, it totally disappears? Yeah.

First, I couldn't think of anything at all. Then I could only think of bad memories.

_You were just the delivery boy . . ._

_Do you even want to save Kairi?_

_Heart or no heart, at least he still has a conscience._

Even when I thought about stuff from the island, they were memories that connected to the bad times.

_Deal? Winner gets to share a paopu with Kairi._

_Guess I'm the only one still working on the raft._

_Sora, when we grow up, let's get off this island!_

Finally, other memories started coming up. Sora's fifth birthday party, when, on a dare from Selphie, he'd plunged his face straight into the cake. He'd been picking icing out of his hair all day. Playing blitzball with Wakka and Tidus. The first time Sora admitted, in a sort of roundabout way, that, _maybe_, girls weren't completely and totally infested with cooties. And that, maybe, Kairi wasn't so bad. But that didn't mean he liked her! Along with these, I got images of Kairi as a little tiny girl, playing a hand-jive with someone I couldn't see. That must have been Amaya.

"You help, too," I heard real-life Amaya say. That brought out what was probably the most surprising image of all; a tiny baby, with a thatch of red hair, wrapped in a pink blanket, the tanned hand at her feet being the only indication of who could be holding her.

Kairi fitted another arrow to her bow when that last image flashed across our eyes. Her hand faltered; she hesitated. And then tears began to roll down her face.

* * *

**Review Responses**

1blondegamer: Oh, sorry, didn't mean to confuse you. My theory is that the ultimate light and ultimate darkness are constantly battling for control, creating the balance that is the universe. So, for there to be darkness, there has to be light. The light is the force that Kairi and Sora carry (hence it was attracted to them), and the darkness is the force that Riku and Amaya carry.

Idiotichobo: Did I go where you thought I was going? (Blushes) Well, I'm so glad to receive such a compliment! Yes, I did try to make Amaya a bit more realistic than your average OC—OCs don't have to be Mary-Sues, right? (Smiles)


	22. The Darkness And Light Within

A/N: Sorry about the wait for the update—I've now played KH2 through twice, and it was really hard to get back into this when Axel had hijacked my brain. Probably won't write anything about him, though . . .I just like to keep him in my mind for my own imaginings . . .kukuku . . . .

Disclaimer: Ya da, ya da, ya da, don't own Kingdom Hearts, ya da, ya da, ya da . . .

**The Light and the Darkness Within**

Kairi wavered, color fading in and out of her face and body. Patches of red appeared in her hair, only to be replaced with the shimmering white. Her tears burnt tracks of color down her face, but even as the light was washed away, it returned with a flurry of sparks. Her hand dropped to her side, as if to drop the bow, but then she would raise it again, sighting along the arrow. The silent tears kept pouring down.

Sora had stopped the constant sword swiping when he noticed Kairi's hesitation. He tilted his head to one side, watching her indecision. She opened her mouth, releasing a broken sob.

That sound, the first that either of the beings of light had uttered, sent Sora over to her. She dropped her bow on the ground. He touched her face uncertainly and looked at the color that washed over his fingertips. He touched her face again, and let his hand fall down her arm, leaving a swipe of color in its wake. He leaned down and kissed her wet cheekbone.

The change was instantaneous. The color spread from her cheeks across her nose, down her neck, through her hair. His lips pinked, color threading its way outward across his face. When he took his lips away, blue spokes showed in the white irises, and when he laid his head on her shoulder, it was brown hair that brushed her cheek.

She brought her arms around him, " . . .r here."

"Yeah, I'm here," he answered.

Before anyone could celebrate their return to humanity, the ground started shaking violently, and there came an almost animalistic scream that ripped through air like a dagger through silk.

Riku grabbed my hand and took off running toward Kairi and Sora, not intending to get separated from them again. I looked behind me, but my father seemed to have disappeared without a trace.

"Papa? Papa!" I tugged on Riku's arm, trying to make him let go, but he gripped my hand so tight I nearly winced.

"We can't go back now, Amaya."

"But my father—"

"Would want you to be safe," he insisted, dragging me along. I have wanted to ask him what he knew about it, but as the next tremor sent me nearly careening into him, I thought that this might not be the best time for bickering.

"What's happening?" Kairi grasped Riku's sleeve in one hand and held Sora close with the other.

"I don't know," he answered, working to be heard above the ever-increasing rumbling. "I think refusing to play their game made them mad."

"Ya think?" Sora answered, looking around as though he expected something to fall on us. What, I'm not sure, since we seemed to be on an endless flat plain.

I suddenly felt a scorching pain at my chest and flinched, bringing up on hand to try and find the cause of the pain. The chain around my neck was taut as a high wire; brushing my hand against it did not move it at all. The burning grew worse and I yelped, tearing my hand away from Riku's and clawing at the chain, frantically trying to move the hot stone away from my skin. It stayed solid. I pulled with both hands on the chain, but it was as if the stone was a part of me—if the temperature was anything to judge by, it may have melted to my skin. I screeched, pulling at it with both hands. The heat was unbearable. I fell to the floor, writhing, knowing I must be frightening them, but desperate to escape the agony of the jewel that blistered my skin. I felt Riku's hands join my own, trying to pull the searing gem away from me, and through tearing eyes, I could see my friend's faces bathed in sickly purple light.

"What's happening to her?"

**_You. You thought you could conquer sorrow?_** A cold laugh shivered through my mind, like a treacherous undercurrent in deep waters. **_You are pitiful._**

A fresh stab of pain seemed to go through my heart, and I gasped, unable to make out any other sort of noise, back rising off the floor. If the others were still there, I was insensible of it. **_You know nothing. You understand nothing._**

_Help me . . ._ I wasn't sure if I said these words out loud or just thought them. I didn't even know who I was pleading with. Riku? Father? This angry spirit? I didn't care who it was, as long as they made the pain stop.

**_This pain is nothing. I have been trapped here for thousands of years, and no one is keeping me here any longer!_**

I felt an enormous weight, as if someone had decided to sit on my chest. I couldn't breathe. I saw stars as the stone pushed down so hard that I was sure it must embed itself into my flesh. _**Release me!**_

_Go,_ I wanted to say, _Do whatever you want, just make the pain stop. Make it go away._ But I was stronger then that now. I wasn't the little girl who had run barefoot through the monster-infested halls crying for someone to help her. I wasn't the little girl who forgot her sister, forgot everything but saving herself. I wasn't the little girl who killed an entirely planet simply to ensure her own safety. I wasn't the little girl who used an outsider to break down a shield that she could have taken down herself. I wasn't going to be weak, I wasn't going to hide behind anyone, and I would not—

**_Yield._**

_No._

I was insensible to anything happening outside myself and the stone. Even the blazing stone that had my body writhing in torment seemed somehow farther away. All that existed now was this. I must not give in. I must not.

My vision went dark, and I saw before me the king again, his wavy dark hair falling past his shoulders, but his eyes sparked with anger, rather than flooded with remorse.

**_What are you doing?_** He hissed. **_Release me! Release me immediately! There is a new world that waits to be crafted!_**

_No._

He bared his teeth in a viscous snarl, and leapt forward, his face inches from my own, his breath, smelling strangely sweet, blowing against my face as he spoke. **_You will release me. Now. Or, heaven help me, I cannot be responsible for what will happen to you._**

_So you say,_ I managed to answer, at least in thought, _But still I cannot release you._

The hands moved to circle around my throat. They pushed. Not hard enough to cut off my air entirely, but enough to make breathing very difficult. **_You would leave me to burn in this hell forever? You are selfish. And cruel._**

_I am neither; letting you out would destroy us all, including yourself._

**_Destruction would be blessed after torment such as this._**

_That is why I cannot release you._

He growled, but stepped back. I caught a breath, feeling the bruises on my neck. His hair lengthened and became white. His eyes became a bright gold. **_Amaya, you would leave me here?_**

_I would not, if I had a choice._

_**You have a choice. Simply release us.**_

_I cannot. Please, understand that I cannot._

**_Why can you not?_**

_It would mean the end. The destruction of everything._

_**Do you think I would do that?**_

_Whatever part of you got stuck in this place would._

His face turned thoughtful. **_Would it be so horrible? After all, life is simply a temporary state. Why not dispense with it? Stay in the eternal, whatever that might be?_**

_I know that is wrong, and if you were yourself, you would know that, too._

_**Release me. Amaya. My daughter. Release me.**_

Tears squeezed out the corners of my eyes._ No._

My father disappeared, and in his place stood the one whose face I could not forget. Whose face would always look at me, blank-eyed from the bloody floor of a shrine for a long-forgotten deity. **_Release me._**

_That line's getting really old._

**_We've been in pain for so many years. The light burns. Let us go to the shade. Let us go to the darkness and sleep._**

Just the sound of his voice, just the suggestion of rest, made my eyes feel droopy, and my limbs leaden. The burning at my chest eased. I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.

**_You've brought us this far, darling girl. Rest. Close your eyes and rest._**

I felt rather then saw him come closer. His arms wrapped around me, not in anger, as the king's had, but softly, cradling me against him, allowing me to pillow my head on his shoulder.**_ Rest. Come to the darkness and rest._**

I knew this should feel horribly wrong, but I couldn't seem to remember why at the moment. How could it be wrong? It was so comfortable to be held like this. And I was so tired. So very tired.

**_Rest, love,_** the voice spoke, so close that his breath tickled my ear and sent shivers down my spine. _**Rest.**_

Rest sounded so good. He would protect me. I wouldn't have to worry about anything, not with his arms there to keep me safe. **_Rest, love, rest._**

My eyes flew open. _Love?_ I felt the arms around me and suddenly felt ill. I tried to break free.

**_What is wrong?_**

_Let me go._

His arms tightened around me. **_Let _me_ go_**.

_You know I can't. Not until you believe in the balance again._

**_How can I believe in balance when he believes only in light? I must fight back with the dark to achieve balance. Don't you see?_**

_But it isn't balanced. The light is going out. You must see it._

**_The pendulum must swing both ways before it can return to its center._**

_Last time the balance was upset, your world was split apart. What will happen this time? Will the worlds keep splitting, into smaller and smaller pieces, until they are too small to live on? How will that solve anything?_

**_We cannot put it back together!_** He retorted angrily.

_Yes,_ I was suddenly struck with an idea. _Yes, we can._ For the first time since I'd fallen to the floor, I remembered my friends. _Riku!_ I called. _Kairi! Sora!_

" . . .maya?"

I must have managed to speak out loud, if they'd responded. Emboldened, I tried again. The _worlds. Remember them. Every one you've been to. Remember them. Think about them now._

Images flooded in, of the many worlds that Riku and Sora had visited. A sea. A jungle. A night sky where children flew through the air like birds. A desert. Traverse Town. A white-sand island. I added my own images of Traverse Town, and of Hollow Bastion before the Heartless invaded. And the barren, nameless world I had spent half my life trapped on.

**_You cannot put it back together._**

_Yes. I. Can._ I felt my knees touch the ash that stood on the ground, inches deep. My hands had hit the ground to help me catch my balance. I sat for a moment on my heels, bracing my weight on my hands. I moved my hands so that the space between my first fingers and thumbs became a rough circle. Then the circle began to glow.

**_You'll never have enough power. You can't do this._**

At first, it appeared that nothing was happening. Then, a few tentative bits of green began to push out of the ground. I laughed, and watched as the space between my hands grew into lush grass.

**_That's hardly the entire planet._**

_Just you wait and see!_ All my muscles tensed as I pushed everything I had into the ground. The circle widened, to five feet across, to ten feet across. Green shoots continued to push out of the ground, grass, and clover, and just to the left of my pinky, a small wildflower unfurled its petals. I continued to push, but the circle wouldn't get any wider. Almost unconsciously, my jaw dropped open, trying to bring in more air. My eyes squinched shut. The circle pushed out a few inches, but no more.

"Don't give up!" I felt a hand touch my shoulder.

I shrugged it off. _I can do this alone, Riku._

He put his hand back, completely unperturbed. "But you don't have to."

Another wave of power came surging through, pushing the circle out further. Small saplings began to shoot out of the earth, unfurling leaves so fast the eye could hardly follow. The green spread out further and further. In the distance I could see more trees and bushes taking over, rather then grass. The trees grew taller, until the light suddenly dimmed. I looked up and realized that the trees had grown tall enough to create a shady forest, if it was yet large enough to be called that. Still, the power kept coursing through me, and I pushed the circle bigger, so big that I could no longer see the edges of it. But it was my magic, and I could always feel the edges of that even when I could not see it. That's how I knew when the edge of the circle reached the water, and regrew the plants there, and when all the fish that lived in or off them returned. That's how I knew when the circle bent in a half-sphere over us, and when it touched the sky, banishing the slate-gray clouds that had continuously occupied it since the day all the things were first burnt.

_We have power, you and I,_ I thought, looking backwards at the concentrating face of the one kneeling beside me. _We have power. And it can be used to do good things._

I felt the circle close in on itself, revitalizing the world. Giving back the life that I had so callously stolen. **_Life-taker._** Yes, I had taken it. But I had given it back.

The images played before my eyes again and I heard a noise greater than any noise I had ever heard in my life. It was like every thunder head that had ever been or would ever be exploded all at once, like every firecracker in all the worlds had been simultaneously lit, like every instrument that anyone had ever played was being played now, at its loudest possible volume. And yet, it did not occur to me to cover my ears. Instead, I moved toward Riku, the two of us holding each other against the light and the sound.

_If we fall, we fall together._

Everything went white.

**

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Review Responses:**

Natty1991: Sorry this chapter took so long! I hope you liked it:)

TigerKiss: Hope the story lived up to your expectations! Now, quickly, the epilogue!

Idiotichobo: Hmm? Really? I'd like to hear what your idea was . . .drop me a line!

1blondegamer: Glad you liked!


	23. Epliogue

**Epilogue **

Hoofed animals ran in herds, wading through tall waving grasses. Trees grew hundreds of feet tall. Lizards and birds and monkeys and cats and free-floating flowers lay and perched and climbed and stalked and hung on their branches. Fishes large and small swam in waters large and small. There were those that climbed the mountains, those that braved heat, those that braved cold, those that braved rain and those that braved drought. And overhead, the sun and the moon stood together in a pink-yellow sky. There were cities and towns and villages, and all the people stepped outside to look at the pink-yellow sky as the sun began to set and the stars blinked themselves awake. The light and the dark looked good together. They were home.

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It's been a long haul, and I thank all of you that have reviewed, or even just dropped by. Thank you all very much!

**_Special Thank You To Everyone Who Put This Story On Their Favorite List!_**

1blondegamer, AngelGunnerLenne, DarkRiku14, Devilgirl57, Doomboy2000, EyeoftheTigerKissoftheDragon, Ice Dagger, Idiotichobo, Kosa-kun, Luv4Sesshy, NotaGeishaGurl, Obsessive.Daydreamer, RikuofDarkness, SarahtheSlayer, SilverHearts, Starchild574, and the Dr.

**Special Thank You To Everyone Who Put Me On Their Favorite Authors List!**

1blondegamer, ArcAngel1, Daydreaming Git, EyeoftheTigerKissoftheDragon, Ice Dagger, Idiotichobo, Obsessive.Daydreamer, RikuofDarkness, SessRin2003, Starchild574, tailsimp, Tenchi Kai

And An Extra-Special Super Duper Thank You To **_Ice Dagger_**, the best beta a girl could ever have.


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